Police on Tuesday filed the charge sheet in the murder case of Abiroo Shafi Bhat of Khwajapora, Nowgam. The accused in the case are Asifa, wife of the deceased, and her paramour maulavi Tanveer Lelhari. The accused have been booked for murder and criminal conspiracy. The charge sheet was filed before the court of chief judicial magistrate Srinagar. Both the accused, who are unde custody, were produced before the court.
Case File
Tanveer Lelhari, the murderer maulavi, was very popular in the locality and used to deliver Friday sermons in the nearby mosque. The deceased had invited him for lunch on several occasions.
As per the charge sheet, Asifa had been caught red-handed by her husband while talking to the maulavi on phone. The deceased had given a phone number to one of his cousins and asked him to fetch its details.
The wife had, in anger, gone to her maternal home and called up the maulavi. The duo hatched the conspiracy to kill Abiroo and as per the plan, the wife kept her minor girl child at her maternal home in Aloochibagh.
The murder plan was executed between 12 and 12.30 am on the night of 10 March 2018 after the wife gave a glass of milk laced with sedatives to the deceased. The maulavi jumped the wall of the house and entered the room through a window, which had been left open by the wife of the deceased. When Abiroo was in deep slumber and too sedated to resist, the maulvi strangulated him with the assistance of deceased’s wife, Asifa. The moulvi stayed in the house till early morning before jumping the same wall. He took a train from Nowgam railway station for his home at Pulwama.
In their confession, the two accused said they were planning to marry and had been in a relationship for more than a year. The deceased had probably got a whiff of the illicit relationship between the two and had informed the local head of Jamiat-e-AhliHadees, about maulavis behavior.
Not very long ago a Maulavi from Sopore town named Aijaz Sheikh was accused of raping scores of minor boys on the pretext of summoning jinns to drive away evil “Nazar”.
Changing role of Maulavis
Islamic education in India began with the arrival of Arab traders. These Arab traders brought along with them their religion, their Quran, and knowledge. During the early period of Islam, the religious education was imparted inside the mosque complex itself and this system produced wonderful results. This system produced numerous religious scholars (Ulema and Fuzala) who served the religion to the best of their capacity. The Muslim rulers of India also showed interest in this system of education.
When Shahabuddin Ghauri, who had a scholarly bent of mind, conquered Ajmer, he constructed numerous mosques and madrassas for the propagation of Islam. Subsequent Muslim rulers of India also showed great interest in constructing mosques and madrasas. Ghauri Dynasty, Slave Dynasty, Khilji Dynasty, Tughlaq Dynasty, Lodhi Dynasty, Bahmani Kingdom and Mughal Empire built a developed network of mosques and madrassas across the length and breadth of the country. These mosques and madrasas played a great role in the propagation of Islam, the language of the period as well as Islamic culture and value system. These madrasas produced thousands of Ulema who excelled in different fields. Some the most luminous scholars of India such as Sheikh Abdul Haq Dehlavi and Shah Waliullah led Indian Muslims with their scholarly writings.