Mumbai: Woman detained for killing husband with lover, burying body inside house – Times of India

MUMBAI: A 27-year-old woman was detained on Tuesday for conspiring with her boyfriend and killing her husband, before burying his body inside their house at a Dahisar chawl.
A fresh layer of cement on the kitchen tiles alerted the police. Till late on Tuesday, police were still excavating to retrieve the body which had been placed in a gunny bag before burying. The murder was committed 11 days ago.
Shahida Shaikh, the accused, lived with husband, Raees, 28, at Khan compound in Dahisar’s Rawalpada. The couple had been married for nine years and have two children.
On May 21, Shahida approached the Dahisar police station and complained that her husband had gone missing. She said that he never returned from the garments shop that he worked in. When the police started making inquiries in Khan compound, a different picture emerged. The police found out that Shahida was having an extra marital relationship with a young man, Amit Vishwakarma, from the neighbourhood. Vishwakarma, a security guard by profession, had vanished since May 21– the same day that Shahida reported her husband missing. The police made inquiries with Shahida but she gave evasive responses.
“On Tuesday, a police team carried out an inspection of Shahida’s house. They found it odd that some tiles of the kitchen were covered in a fresh layer of cement. When asked about it, Shahida stayed mum. The team then decided to pull out the tiles and examine,” said additional commissioner Dilip Sawant.
After initial digging, the police found a huge hole in the ground. Shahida then allegedly admitted to the crime. “On May 20, after Raees reached home from work, Vishwakarma strangled him with a nylon rope with Shahida’s help. Her children were asleep at the time. Later, the body was packed in a gunny bag and the two removed tiles in the kitchen to dig a hole to bury the body. They replaced the tiles with a fresh coat of cement in the end,” said an officer.
Shahida claims she distracted the children, when they woke up due to the noise, by plonking them in front of the television and turning up the volume. But the police believe the children might be knowing more and could have been threatened into silence. Multiple police teams are hunting for Vishwakarma. Shahida told investigators that the two were keen to live together and therefore plotted to eliminate her husband.