Main suspect ‘watched cartoons on TV’ after returning home

Known to friends and neighbours as Qasim Bengali as his father hails from West Bengal,he is now considered the main suspect

After an 18-hour-long absence from home during which he was allegedly involved in the gangrape of a 22-year-old photojournalist at Shakti Mills,18-year-old Mohammad Qasim returned home at 9 pm Thursday to watch cartoon shows on TV.

Known to friends and neighbours as Qasim Bengali as his father hails from West Bengal,he is now considered the main suspect in the case by the police after the interrogation of the two suspects arrested earlier and statements of the victim and her male colleague.

On Thursday,Qasim was watching TV and resting after dinner when he got a call from the local Crime Branch office asking him to come to their office. His 10-year-old younger sister,who was in the house,has told police she heard him make a few quick calls before he switched off his cellphone and left around 11 pm. He did not even wear his slippers, the 10-year-old reportedly told the police. The sketches were yet to be made at this time and Qasim had not expected the victim to lodge a formal complaint.

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His mother,Chandbibi (35),says she has not heard from him since. The 35-year-old was in the familys home in Madanpura on Thursday night when Qasim returned. He brushed his teeth almost as soon as he came home and then switched on the TV and asked what was for dinner. He watched TV for a while and we then had dinner. He asked me for Rs 200 to buy gutka,but I did not have that much and gave him Rs 50 instead. At 10 pm,I left home for work. When I returned an hour-and-a-half later,he was gone, she said.

His cellphone was switched off and I did not know where to find him. That night,I looked in Byculla,Agripada,Maratha Mandir and Nair Hospital areas,but did not find him, she said.

The family lives in a shanty next to a CNG filling pump in Madanpura. Qasim,who is alleged to have been the first to rape the victim,has three younger siblings,including two sisters. Chandbibi’s husband Mohammad Hashim died of liver cirrhosis 10 years ago. Hashim,she said,had migrated to Mumbai from Kolkata,while she herself had come to Mumbai from Bihar at the age of five with her mother.

Qasim earned a little by working as a waiter whenever there was a wedding held there, she said. The family also supplements its income by renting out a room on top of theirs for Rs 1,500 a month.

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While she knows that her son kept the company of the other accused at Dhobi Ghat in Mahalaxmi,she claimed ignorance about his involvement in petty thefts. Since Madanpura woke Friday to the news of the gangrape,word spread quickly among neighbours,most of whom were urging her to turn Qasim in.

Qasim is a history-sheeter,with two cases against him at Agripada police station for stealing scrap from railway yards. He spent nine months in jail for the offences.