Mystery shrouds lawyer’s death

Our Correspondent

Jammu, February 24

In a shocking incident, husband of a retired Chief Engineer of the Power Development Department (PDD) Shahnaz Goni was murdered in the posh Grater Kailash locality of the city on Monday under mysterious circumstances.

The deceased was identified as senior advocate Reyaz Ahmad Guchh(65). The incident took place last night when Riyaz was alone at home. At present, his wife Shahnaz has gone abroad to attend a marriage of her close relative, while his son and daughter-in-law are in Goa.

The police got information around 10 am and on reaching the spot, they found the body of the advocate on the bed. They are suspecting the involvement of the domestic help, who has gone missing after the incident.

“The mobile phone of the domestic help is switched off, the CCTV in the house is damaged and the private car of the advocate and some valuables are missing. This indicates the motive behind the murder is theft and it is a planned one,” sources said.

Police sources said preliminary investigations suggested the deceased had a scuffle with his killer before he was apparently strangulated and there were injury marks on his head and face. Deepak, the domestic help, hails from Bihar, and is suspected to be the prime accused who was hired by the family in October last year.

The police said the body of the deceased has been shifted to the hospital for postmortem and they are waiting for his son to return. However, the police has launched a massive manhunt for the accused in Bishnah where he is residing at present.

Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP), Jammu, Shridhar Patil said, “We have registered a case and the investigation is on. We have credible leads and hopefully we will solve the case at the earliest. The CCTV cameras are also damaged.”