‘Killer’ father arrested

In a major breakthrough, police today arrested Salim Ghulam Hussain Sheikh, who allegedly killed his five minor daughters by throwing them i...

In a major breakthrough, police today arrested Salim Ghulam Hussain Sheikh, who allegedly killed his five minor daughters by throwing them into river in Bharuch town in Gujarat on February 5.

Bharuch police investigating officer V.J. Patel said: ‘‘Sheikh was taken into custody by Veradia village police post where he was hiding after committing the crime and a police party has been sent to bring him to Bharuch.’’ Police had registered an offence of murder against Sheikh following his wife Roshanbano’s complaint.

The complaint was lodged after search parties found bodies of two of the victims. The body of the youngest, three-year-old Suhana, was found on Saturday afternoon, while the body of five-year-old Yasmeen was found near a brick-making furnace, four km from Jhadeshwar bridge.

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An angry Roshanbano refused to believe that a debt of Rs 8,000 drove her husband to committing the crime. ‘‘I could have managed to pay the money back. Why did he have to kill my daughters?’’ she asked.

‘‘He had taken them on the pretext of visiting the Daula Shah Bawa ki Dargah, on the outskirts of Varedia, and called on Thursday around 4 pm saying he had put the girls on a train and was not coming back,’’ she said.

Roshanbano says Sheikh had lost his job two months ago and had begun working as an autorickshaw driver just a fortnight back.

Roshanbano is Sheikh’s second wife, a fact she herself came to know only six months after her marriage in 1993. ‘‘But Sheikh divorced his first wife and it was after the Godhra riots that he shifted to Kahaan and later to Varedia,’’ said her father Vali Umarji.

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Bharuch police suspect marital discord. ‘‘She has remained quiet but she did briefly mention that her husband suspected her of infidelity,’’ says Vijay Joshi, Bharuch DySP.