Mohammad Alam (35) from Hapur murdered Pooja Devi, his 33-year-old wife, in Uttar Pradesh’s Ghaziabad and disposed of her body in the canal. He was already married with four children and didn’t want to keep her with him. The police have registered a case and arrested the accused on 24th July.
According to reports, Mohammad Alam was in a live-in relationship with Pooja for at least four years. She was at odds with her first husband. She insisted on living with the perpetrator which angered him and he strangled her to death with her dupatta and threw the body in the Ganga canal. Afterwards, he also filed a missing person report with the police on the same day.
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The matter came to light when Pooja’s sister Poonam approached the authorities and lodged a complaint that her sister had been missing for a few days. She was suspicious of Mohammad Alam as he stayed with the victim and the cops looked into the case. They apprehended and interrogated him after which he confessed to the crime and revealed that he met Pooja five years ago in the Vijaynagar area of Ghaziabad where he used to run a car mechanic shop. The two then grew closer.
Pooja who had three children had separated from her husband and was living apart from him at a house in Sector 9, Vijay Nagar. The two became more intimate and eventually moved in together. Mohammad Alam’s wife Shana stayed in the village. He established an auto repair business in Noida a while after meeting the deceased. The couple got married in a Nikah ceremony at home six months ago and a few days later, she began putting pressure on him to leave his first spouse and live with her.
She continuously forced him to comply which was against his wishes and hence he decided to get rid of her and planned to murder her. On 19th July she again pushed him for the same. His son was admitted to a hospital in Ghaziabad at the time and she told him to come there and meet her. Afterwards, they met outside, and the culprit took Pooja in a car. An argument broke out between the duo and he choked her to death and dumped her body in Ganga canal. He then went to the police station to submit a missing person’s complaint. The police arrested Mohammad Alam from Ghaziabad and registered a case against him after the truth was disclosed.
He notified police that his wife had left the house following a fight and had turned off her phone, in the early hours of 20th July, per other media reports. On 22nd July, however, Poonam accused him of kidnapping her sister in a police complaint.
Rajesh Kumar, deputy commissioner of police (city zone) unveiled that on 19th July Mohammad Alam fixed a customer’s Santro automobile and drove it to a Masoori hospital where his son was hospitalized owing to a liver infection. According to the investigation, at approximately 8:00 pm, Pooja contacted him and insisted that he return home, however, he declined and told her was going to see his kid which led to a disagreement. Pooja then informed him that she would also be visiting the hospital.
He further informed, “After the second missing person complaint, police got suspicious and questioned Alam at length. He broke down and admitted to killing Devi. He told us that his son was admitted to a hospital for the past several days and Devi was pressuring him to stay with her and not visit the hospital. As a result, the two had an altercation near the hospital. At 9:30 pm, Pooja reached the hospital. Alam asked her to wait for him outside. Later, Alam took her in the Santro car towards the Ganga canal and the two kept arguing throughout their journey. Alam told us that he took Devi in a Santro car to a canal near Masoori and strangled her to death on the night of July 22. He later dumped the body in the canal.”
The official added, “The suspect murdered the woman in the car on an isolated road near the canal. He dumped the body in the canal and it is yet to be recovered. We seized the car used in the crime and arrested the suspect for murder and destruction of evidence.” A First Information Report has been registered and section 140 (2) (kidnapping or abducting to murder or for ransom) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita has been invoked against him. “Police are currently trying to recover the body. Soon, the police will add BNS section 103 (punishment for murder),” stated an official.
