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The murderous Maulana

Jake Khan in Bombay

Facts have always been stranger than fiction. Stephen King could not have imagined such a horrific tale, nor could P D James have scripted such a whodunnit. A prominent Muslim priest not only killed his maid servant to bury his illicit liaison along with her body, but also minced her corpse in a manner crueler than the local butcher.

The Bombay district police (which includes Bombay city, Thane city and rural areas till Karjat which is over 100 km from Bombay) have never recorded a more gruesome murder in their crime registers, say officers involved with the investigation.

At the heart of the crime is Maulana Abdul Qadri, the 42-year-old head of the Ashraliya school of thought and peshiman (leader) of the biggest Sunni mosque in Mumbra, a central suburb off Bombay.

Qadri, who knew the entire Holy Quran (comprising over 6,666 verses) and over 70,000 maxims from the Holy Prophet Muhammad, led the five obligatory Islamic prayers in the Ashraliya Masjid in Kausa, on the Bombay-Pune highway. Hailing from a village in Azamgarh, where his wife and children lived, Qadri stayed alone at a spacious apartment in Kausa.

Since he lived alone, his followers had provided him with a 24-year-old maid servant, Razia alias Rajbi Hannan. Razia used to come to work twice a day and spent over a couple of hours each time in the priest's house.

Although Razia's responsibility included washing Qadri's clothes, cleaning the house and cooking food for him, Qadri also fulfilled his sexual needs through her, the police allege. According to Qadri's statement recorded by the Mumbra police, Qadri seduced her some time early last year and since then he continued to have an adulterous relationship with her. Everything was going right for him, until Razia dropped a bombshell in March.

Razia told Qadri she had missed her periods and probably was pregnant. Later, her pregnancy was confirmed. Following this Qadri insisted on an abortion while Razia wanted to not only keep the baby but also demanded that Qadri marry her. For the Maulana, it was unimaginable to marry a lowly maid servant, and further antagonise his family. He insisted on Raiza aborting the baby and in a way made it clear that she could be his mistress. Humiliated and hurt, Razia warned Qadri that since she would not live with the stigma of an unwed mother, she will give the child his name and tell everybody that he is the child's father. A veiled threat and that too from a maid servant not only shocked him but also made him furious.

Idul-Zoha (Bakri-Idd) was approaching, and Qadri came up with a gameplan. He decided to kill Razia and dispose of her corpse after making mincemeat of it. According to the police inspector, crime, Kashinath Kachrem who spearheaded the investigations into Razia's murder, Qadri called Razia home on March 14 and killed her. After strangulating Razia to death, he chopped off her head using a sharp knife. Working furiously, Qadri slashed open her torso and hacked her arms and legs into pieces. He then hacked off the flesh on the body. It took five arduous hours for Qadri to chop Razia's body into 20 pieces and then working carefully, he scraped all the flesh from her bones.

Qadri stuffed Raiza's body into the refrigerator and began flushing down small pieces of her flesh down the toilet. After three days of painstaking flushing, Qadri was left with only the carcass and her head. He then shoved Razia's disfigured head into a nearby nullah and dumped the remains on a barren field near the Darling pumps in Kausa.

More than four days passed and when the police had no inkling of the murder, Qadri presumed he had gotten away with it. However, Providence had other plans. On March 18, the Mumbra police received a phone-call about a carcass in the field which did not seem to be that of an animal. Thus, the police team came upon the human remains.

For the senior police inspector of Mumbra police station, Janardhan Garje, it was difficult to establish the sex of the victim. The groin was missing, as was the flesh cover. But a few things found in the vicinity gave them their much-needed clue. A petticoat, brassiere and sari lying nearby led the police to suspect that it was a female. The body was sent to the Thane Civil Hospital for an autopsy.

On March 20, the police heard that a plumber had found several pieces of meat in the sewer pipe of Aziza Terrace building. Assuming it to be beef, the plumber ignored it, but the incident also gave the police their first breakthrough. They then began scanning reports of missing women. On March 24, the police discovered that Razia had been missing and that she used to frequent the building on work.

Another maid working in the same building disclosed that Razia, who worked in Qadri's house, was two months pregnant. The police now had a murder and also the motive. Qadri had become a suspect. Finally, the police picked him up for questioning on March 26.

The local Muslim population, which comprised over 90 per cent of the entire population of Mumbra, seethed with outrage and anger at this. Some 200 people besieged the Mumbra police station and sought the immediate release of their religious leader. With Bakri Id round the corner, the police were worried that it may snowball into a serious law and order problem. They buckled and released Qadri the next day.

However, when Razia's head was discovered from a nearby nullah on March 27 it proved to be the last straw for Qadri. During the course of questioning, he broke down and confessed to his crime. Qadri's confession not only nailed him, but also shook the faith of Mumbra residents in him. His followers have become his detractors now:

''I considered him to be vali (a Muslim saint) and considered it my good fortune to be able to say my namaaz with him. Now I realised I prayed had behind a shaitan (devil) all my life,'' said Mohammed Asif, Qadri's follower.

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