Delhi Police solves 29-year-old murder case
A 29-year-old murder file, buried in dusty records long before digital databases and facial recognition existed, was reopened by the Delhi Police Crime Branch with little more than old case papers, fading memories and no recent photograph of the prime suspect. After retracing decades-old leads and rebuilding the investigation from scratch, police tracked down the alleged killer, who had been living under an assumed identity, moving across several cities for nearly three decades.
The Crime Branch arrested Mohammad Fahim alias Ali Bhai, a proclaimed offender wanted in a 1997 murder case registered at the Rajouri Garden police station. He was nabbed from Thakurganj in Lucknow on July 3, bringing one of Delhi Police's oldest pending murder investigations to a close.
According to police, the case dates back to March 14, 1997, when the body of an unidentified man was found inside a room at TC Camp in Raghubir Nagar.
The deceased was later identified as 58-year-old Sharif Hasan Khan, a resident of present-day Ayodhya district in Uttar Pradesh, who worked at a clothing shop in Rajouri Garden.
The investigation at the time revealed that Fahim, who had come to Delhi in search of work, knew Khan. Police alleged that the two had an altercation on March 13, 1997, after Fahim stole money from the victim. During the dispute, he allegedly assaulted Khan with an iron rod, strangled him with a rope and concealed the body inside a wooden diwan storage box before fleeing.
Despite repeated efforts, the accused remained untraceable and was declared a proclaimed offender by a Delhi court in October 1997.
The investigation was recently handed over to the Central Range of the Crime Branch, which undertook a fresh review of the case. Special Commissioner of Police, Crime Division HGS Dhaliwal said, "Officers faced multiple hurdles, including the absence of recent photographs or reliable identification records and the fact that the investigation pre-dated modern digital policing tools."
Police said investigators relied extensively on field intelligence, developing local sources in the accused's native village to establish that he was alive and occasionally visited the area. Surveillance and intelligence gathering eventually led the team to Lucknow's Chowk Kotwali area, where his presence was confirmed, after which a raid was carried out in Thakurganj.
During interrogation, Fahim allegedly confessed to the murder, claiming it stemmed from a dispute over money. Police said he admitted to living under the alias "Ali Bhai" after fleeing Delhi and spent the next 29 years moving between Nagpur, Mumbai and Lucknow while working as a Plaster of Paris artisan to avoid arrest.
The accused, an illiterate native of Sultanpur district in Uttar Pradesh, had managed to evade law enforcement by frequently changing locations and concealing his identity, police said.
Crime Branch officials described the arrest as the result of painstaking reinvestigation, extensive fieldwork, surveillance and intelligence gathering that ultimately cracked one of Delhi Police's longest-pending murder cases.
