Blind faith in a spiritual and religious leader, first tattered a Kashmiri man's marriage and subsequently culminated in his murder.
Police have arrested the Imam of a local mosque for pushing his disciple into the Jhelum River in order to pursue his own illicit relationship with the deceased's estranged wife, unhindered.
The Imam has confessed that he told his disciple Shahnawaz Ahmad Dar, who came to him seeking a solution to his marital disputes, to recite verses of the Holy Quran, with his eyes shut, on a bridge over the Jhelum River late in the evening.
As the unsuspecting man sat and prayed with his eyes closed, the wily Imam crept up from behind and pushed him into the fast-moving river and then calmly went home thinking that none would ever discover his dasterdly act.
Shahnawaz Ahmad Dar’s body was fished out after four days and identified by his relatives.Shahnawaz Ahmad Dar was a resident of central district Budgam and his worried father-in-law had filed a missing report with the local police four days ago.
Dar had left his in-law's house in Qamarwari pocket of Capital Srinagar late in the evening on September 29 to offer prayers in the local mosque, but did not return. He had a marital dispute with his wife who had left him and gone to live with her parents, and Dar was making repeated attempts to coax her into returning home.
In a region where mysterious disappearances of youngsters are not unusual, Dar's father-in-law Noor Muhammad Khanday was advised by his relatives to report his disappearance to the police on September 30.
However, try as they would, the police could not trace him.After four days police informed them that Dar's body had been fished out from the river near Maloora Village on the periphery of Srinagar district.
After a detailed investigation, Senior Superintendent of Police, Ashiq Hussain Bukhari has said that Dar had fallen into the cunning Imam’s trap little knowing that his wife was involved in an illicit relationship with the very person whom he had approached to solve his personal affairs. The police said that Molvi Abdul Gani Naik, a resident of south Kashmir's Kulgam belt, has been arrested and he confessed to his involvement in the murder.
Naik had left some traces, which led the police to track him down.Naik's identity card was found in the pocket of the pheran, (long Kashmiri dress) that was on Dar's body when it was fished out of the river.
Unaware that the police had found Dar’s body, Naik unsuspectingly told the police that he owned the pheran and Dar met him before his disappearance.
However, what Naik concealed from the police were his frequent visits to Dar's in-laws’ home and his relationship with Dar's estranged wife.When confronted with the facts, Naik was defenseless and confessed his involvement in the murder.
What stunned investigators was that Naik offered a rosary to Dar and advised him to recite some versus from the Quran on a bridge over the river 313 times in his presence. When Dar began the recitations, he pushed him from behind.
The incident took place in the backdrop of a growing number of murders involving love affairs and sexual escapades in the embattled Kashmir Valley. In 2012, 11 such murders were recorded, according to the data released by the National Crime Records Bureau of India. This is a 37.5 per cent increase from the year 2011, when eight people were murdered for these reasons.