Man arrested after his 22-year-old girlfriend dies at homestay in Guwahati; police suspect murder over suicide claim
&imwidth=600&imheight=450&format=webp&quality=medium "Man arrested after his 22-year-old girlfriend dies at homestay in Guwahati; police suspect murder over suicide claim")
Representative image. Photograph: (Magnific)
The woman had been staying with Asif Ali, the man who has since been arrested, at a homestay in Garal on the outskirts of the city. Guwahati West Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) Bolin Deori said that Ali had told investigators she died by suicide.
Guwahati police arrested a 26-year-old man after a 22-year-old female student was discovered dead in a homestay room in which they were staying, early on Saturday (September 26). Police said that they found no blood on the body or the floor. Meanwhile, the post-mortem examination report of the body is yet to come. After the arrest, the accused said that the girl hanged herself; however, police refused the man's claims and suspect the incident is a murder.
Amid the investigation, two key angles have surfaced so far. The first piece indicates a family friend's claim about the death of the young woman, who'd informed her family that she'd stay the night at a friend's home, but she called her mother in the middle of the night and said, "They will kill me." The statement of the victim came before her phone was "probably snatched," though police claim this information remains to be investigated.
Another piece related to the incident surfaced is the homestay caretaker's statement claiming that he heard a man shouting during the night, "asking someone to get up". Following her death, the incident triggered a protest over the allegation of "love jihad" as the woman was a Hindu and her boyfriend, who has been arrested, is a Muslim.
The woman had been staying with Asif Ali, the man who has since been arrested, at a homestay in Garal on the outskirts of the city. Guwahati West Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) Bolin Deori said that Ali had told investigators she died by suicide. "We don't believe his version. We need to continue our investigation," Deori said. "The inquiry is in the preliminary stage. And we suspect this as a kind of murder," he said, adding, "We haven't found blood on the body or the floor, and our investigation is on," NDTV quoted Deori as saying.
Deori explained that police were alerted after the woman was brought to a local health facility unconscious. She was later referred to Gauhati Medical College and Hospital (GMCH), where doctors declared her dead. According to Deori, police are currently questioning the homestay's owner, caretakers, and other staff members.
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‘They will kill me, Mom’
Speaking on behalf of the family outside the post-mortem hall at GMCH, a neighbour and friend of the woman's father said that the father had repeatedly tried calling him, but he had missed the calls while occupied with other work. When he called back, the father told him that his elder daughter had been murdered, prompting them to rush to Gauhati Medical College and Hospital together.
"Later, we got information that the girl had left home yesterday evening around 5 pm. She told her family that she was going to a friend's home to have some snacks. Around 8 pm, her mother called her and asked where she was. She replied that they were having dinner and said that if she got late, she would stay at her friend's house for the night," he said, adding, "Again, around 10 pm, her mother called her. The girl said that she would stay there for the night."
"At around 2 am, the girl called her mother and was crying. She said, 'They will kill me, Mom.' She repeated that they would kill her. After that, her phone was probably snatched," he said. "Her parents then went to the nearby Azara police station and informed the police about everything. At that time, the sub-inspector of the police station was on patrol duty. The police received information from a health facility that a girl had been admitted there," he added.
"The police then suggested that we go to GMCH, as she had been referred there. We reached GMCH around 5 am, where the doctor declared her dead," he also said. "We strongly suspect that this is a murder case because the girl had called her mother and told her that 'they would kill her'. The police investigation is going on, and we hope that the truth will come out," he further said.
