Aligarh child murder case: Locals

ind it hard to believe that serial

sexual predator Aslam did not
rape the child
By OpIndia Staff • opindia.com • 7 min

View Original
 Child abuse

The barbarity exhibited in the brutal killing of a three-year-old

Tina (name changed) by Zahid and Aslam in Aligarh has shaken
the conscience of the country. While there are few ‘secular’
comrades and self-proclaimed fact-checkers who have been busy
spreading misinformation and resorting to whitewashing the
crime, ruling out any possibility of rape on the minor, Swarajya
Magazine’s Swati Goel Sharma elucidates the perspective of the
locals.

In a ground report , Swati apprises the readers with the local’s and
the victim’s family’ point of view regarding the barbaric incident
which transpired in Tappal village in Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh
recently.

Tappal has been flooding with protestors from places as far as

New Delhi and Haryana as the atmosphere here remains tensed.
The locals guide Swarjya’s correspondent to a lane they call
‘Panditon ki Gali’ (street of Pandits). A tent is set up and carpet
laid outside the house of the victim’s family.

When the correspondent approached the victim’s father and

asked about the money dispute that the police have apprised the
media to be the motive of the crime, Tina’s irked father
lambasted, “You really think somebody would unleash such
brutality on a child for 10,000 rupees?” he asks. “That too when
we did not even force him to return the money?”

The father, however, refusing to comment further on the motive

said, “All I ask for is that the culprits, whoever they are, should be
hanged,” he says with folded hands. “Or better, stoned to death at
the highway,” he added bitterly.

The victim’s grandfather also stepped in at that point and

narrated what transpired and what led him to name Zahid as a
suspect.

Zahid (27), was the first to be arrested in the case, followed by his
42-year-old neighbour Aslam. Zahid’s wife Sabusta and younger
brother Mehdi Hasan were also arrested later.

The grandfather informed that he had got into an altercation with

Zahid two days before his grandchild went missing on 30 May. “I
was walking by when I saw Jahid engaged in an argument with a
bicholia (middleman),” he says. The bicholia, also a Muslim, had
got him to lend Rs 50,000 on interest to Zahid about a year ago.
Zahid had returned Rs 40,000 so far.

“They were fighting over money. When they saw me, the
middleman ordered Zahid to return my money. I snapped at the
middleman saying he should be the one to return it as I was
dealing with him and not Zahid. We had some more arguments.
But for me, the matter ended then and there and I moved on
though I heard Zahid say loudly, “main sabko dekh lunga” (I will
deal with everyone)” he recollected.

According to the initial reports, Zahid was the prime accused as

Tappal police had testified that Zahid had brutally choked Tina
Sharma (name changed). Locals claimed that when sniffer dogs
were taken to the garbage heap where Tina’s mutilated body was
dumped, the dogs ran towards Zahid’s house. A senior cop at
Tappal station testified to this. Subusta came under the scanner
as it was her dupatta that the body was found wrapped in.
However, the locals were refusing to buy the police’s explanation.
Those gathered for mourning told Swarajya that they found it
difficult to believe that Zahid had planned the crime as “he was
not criminal-minded”. The locals believed that it was
masterminded by Aslam, who they believed was a serial sexual
predator who targeted minors.

Cops at the Tappal police station also confirmed that Zahid had
no prior criminal record. Aslam, on the other hand, had been
booked twice in the past under POCSO (Protection of Children
from Sexual Offences) Act and once under UP Goonda Act.

In 2014, he was booked under IPC 376 (rape) and sections 3 and 4
of POCSO (penetrative sexual assault) Act for raping his nine-
year-old daughter a ter taking her to a field (FIR number 41/14).
In 2015, he was booked under the UP Goonda Act under various
sections (FIR number 43/015).
Similarly, in 2017, Aslam was booked under sections 452 (house-
trespass) and 354 (outraging modesty of a woman) and sections 7
and 8 of POCSO (sexual assault) for molesting a minor girl a ter
breaking into her house (FIR number 76/017).

In addition, locals also spoke about a prominent case where

Aslam sexually assaulted a minor boy for two weeks. Mohit
Pratap Singh, Aslam’s neighbour confirmed that “about two years
ago, he brought a minor boy from Delhi and kept him in
confinement for two weeks. It was only a ter a police team from
Delhi raided his house and rescued the boy that we came to even
know about it.” Scores of locals corroborated this incident.

Moreover, Tina’s mother had also come forth and alleged that
Aslam had raped his own 4-year-old daughter earlier.

Meanwhile, locals also recalled Aslam as violent. A neighbour

says that a day before the body was found, Aslam chased his wife
with a butchers’ knife in the street. “He would have probably
killed her if not for our intervention,” the neighbour says. He adds
that his wife had come home from her parent’s place the same
day. Neighbours furthered that Aslam’s wife had le t him last year
when he assaulted his daughter again.

Another prime reason why residents of Tappal village suspect

Aslam of executing the crime is because the back gate of the
house of the girl’s grandfather opens into the locality where
Aslam has a second house.

The victim’s uncle confirmed that there was no possibility of Tina

going to Zahid’s locality. “No one seems to have spotted him here
either”, confirmed Tina’s uncle.

On the morning of 2 June, a woman sweeper raised an alarm a ter

she discovered a maggot-infested body thrown in a pile of
garbage and being fed on by stray dogs around 6.30 am. A crowd
gathered at the spot that is hardly 200 metres away from the
Sharma house. The sight le t them stunned. It was mutilated
beyond recognition.

The barbarity unleashed on the child could be gauged from what

a doctor who did the post-mortem later confirmed. “In my seven
years of doing post-mortems, I have never seen such brutality.
Her nasal bridge was damaged and her le t leg and le t arm were
broken. Her right hand had been removed from her body.” The
report, which was circulated widely on social media, also
mentions ‘liquefied brain’, ‘both eyes tissues loosened’ and ribs
seen separately. It suggests death by strangulation.

The family recognised the child by the yellow shorts which were
similar to what Tina was wearing when she went missing.

Moreover, the family also questions the police’s conduct in the

initial days. According to Tina’s maternal grandfather, the police
were trying to cover up the case. He says that when the body was
discovered, the cops immediately took it to the police station and,
without informing the family, began to take it “somewhere” in
their vehicle. But residents confronted the cops, asking them
where the blood relatives of the girl were.

“The police lied to them saying the girl’s grandfather was in their
vehicle. Residents protested saying he was still in the thana. They
understood that the police were trying to show the recovery at a
distant location and stopped the vehicle,” he says. The body was
then sent to the local hospital. Stuffed in a bag, it was later taken
to Aligarh for post-mortem. This time, there were family
members too, he says.

A relative says the police wanted to hush up the case as it was “a

Hindu-Muslim matter”. For the same reason, locals are criticising
the police’s hurried statement ruling out rape.

“If there was no rape, why are police adding POCSO?” asks a
relative. “The post-mortem had no evidence of rape but did not
rule out the possibility. Also, when the forensic report [examining
vaginal swabs of the girl] is awaited, why was police in a rush to
declare no rape took place?” he asks.

Locals found it difficult to believe that Aslam, in particular, did

not rape the child. “Are we expected to believe that a man who
doesn’t spare his own daughter, brings boys from Delhi to satisfy
his urge, peeps into minor girls’ bathrooms, would spare this
girl?” asks a neighbour.

Aslam, it is learnt, had been boycotted by many residents.

Neighbours say the locals held a meeting last year and called for
Aslam to be driven out of the village. But the move was halted by
some members of his Muslim community.

It is also believed that around Aslam’s other house near Zahid’s,

where the body was discovered, the mostly Muslim neighbours
refuse to speak. Several houses were in fact locked on Sunday.
Residents, who have refused to buy the monetary dispute motive,
now ask why a serial sexual predator like Aslam was allowed to
roam freely despite several cases against him.

Though the post mortem report is yet to ascertain whether the

minor girl was raped or not, the local’s corroboration leaves one
to believe that there is much more to be identified in this barbaric
crime which has sent chills down the spine of the citizens of
India.