JILTED LADY COP BATTERS LOVER TO DEATH
FROM ANAND SOONDAS
Lucknow
An upright police officer, she lived with him out of wedlock. She paid
her price: her family turned against her and she was branded “loose”.
He, however, left her in return to marry someone else. He also started
blackmailing her and asked her to “entertain” his friends as well.
In answer, she killed him.
Another journey up the garden path ended in bloody death when Shabnam
Khan, a sub-inspector in the Women’s Complaint Cell in Bareilly, killed
her paramour Arvind Pratap Singh on Sunday night. Arvind was also a
police sub-inspector.
Later Shabnam turned herself in at the police station. She is in police
custody, under suspension.
Shabnam beat Arvind to death when he visited her on Sunday. She had
planned her moves well. First she laced his drink with sleeping pills
and then, when her attempt at slitting his wrist failed, bludgeoned him
to death with bricks.
Pretty, petite Shabnam had been fighting tremendous odds. Attached to
the senior superintendent’s office, she has been continuing her
association with Arvind against the wishes of her family.
She comes from a “respectable” background against which her tale of
passion stands out as murky. Neighbours also call her family “rich”. Her
father is the chief engineer in the state irrigation department here
while her brother is an MBA.
Shabnam, who lives in an affluent colony in the Cantonment area, met
Arvind during her training for the police force in Moradabad. A Master’s
degree-holder in chemistry, she joined in 1997 and had a record of being
“independent-minded” from the beginning.
On surrendering, Shabnam gave her version of the story and said why she
was “so mad at him”.
After having lived with Arvind despite the hurdles, Shabnam had hoped he
would marry her. But Arvind married someone else. That was the last
straw.
Shabnam said she had tried to dissociate herself from Arvind after his
marriage, but he kept pestering her to continue the affair. When she
refused, he started blackmailing her with photographs he had taken of
her in “compromising positions”.
Later Arvind started asking her to “entertain” his friends, Shabnam
claimed.
On the night of the murder, Arvind had said he had borrowed Rs 25,000
from some people and as he could not repay it she should “pay off the
debt” by granting his debtors sexual favours. She decided then that
“things had to be stopped somewhere”.
After the murder, Shabnam slept in the same room where Arvind’s body
remained stashed in a corner. When she recovered her composure “with a
bath”, Shabnam went to the police chowki.
A shadow of a doubt fell on her story, however, after the police
recovered four used plates from the murder site, suggesting she might
have taken help. The police, who are yet to get hold of Shabnam’s
photographs have found used condoms under her mattress.
Opinion on Shabnam’s “moral character” seems to be divided. While her
relatives have washed their hands of her, with none of her family having
visited her, her neighbours remain undecided.
“She seemed to be very stressed,” said one, stopping short of justifying
her action, while another said she used to have frequent fights with her
lover who she always accused of being unfaithful.
Policemen are crying foul against her. They took to the streets today
and blocked traffic. “There is much more than what meets the eye,” said
an investigating officer. “She was a woman of loose morals. Otherwise
how can a sub-inspector afford to live in a house like the one she was
living in?”
These are charges a single woman almost always has to put up with.
Shabnam lived in a flat that a bank manager occupied ea
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