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Navi Mumbai: A 43-year-old man was arrested on July 14 for allegedly beheading his friend, and disposing his body on the pretext of disposing of a dead goat for Bakri Eid.

The murder happened in the early hours of Bakri Eid, on June 28 at around 2 am, and the accused Shafiq Ali Haider, disposed of the body later in the day.

Haider, a resident of the Wadghar area of Panvel, killed his friend Mohammed Aslam Hashmad by beheading him with a fish cleaver. The accused then disposed of Hashmad’s body by throwing the head and torso at different places.

The murder came to light during the investigations of Hashmad’s missing person’s complaint.

Haider, the accused in this incident, had borrowed ₹57,000 from Hashmad for his business. Since Hashmad was going to his native village for Eid on June 28 morning, he started demanding his money back from Haider. But since he had no money, he was avoiding Hasad.

On June 27, Hashmad had been demanding money all day. Later in the evening, he went to Haider’s workshop, where the duo had a heated argument following which Hashmad abused Haider and punched him in the face.

This angered Haider, and he took a fish cleaver and severed Harshmad’s head with just one stroke, according to the Panvel City police.

Police sources said Haider then stuffed the head in one polythene bag and the rest of the body in another. He borrowed a bike from a friend, saying that he had to dispose the body of his dead goat who died before the sacrifice and then disposed the torso in a nullah at Chinchpada on Kalamboli Road and his head in a drain at Karanjade.

On the day of the incident, while Hashmad was at Haider’s workshop, Hashmad’s wife had videocalled him, and hence she knew that he was with Haider.

Hashmad had told his wife that he was to reach the native place the next morning, by flight. Since he did not reach his native place, the wife informed her brother-in-law in Nerul to check on him.

Hashmad, who resides in a building near the old Panvel court, was not to be found at his residence nor was he reachable on the phone, and hence his brother registered a missing person’s complaint with Panvel City police.

During the investigation of the missing complaint, Haider misled the police by saying that Hashmad had left his workshop after meeting him that night.

Later police received information that Haider had switched off his phone and was secretly leaving for Uttar Pradesh. The police intercepted him at Bhopal Railway Station and detained him. “After interrogating him, he revealed the murder details, and we recovered the body parts from the places where he had dumped them,” said Assistant Commissioner of Police, Panvel Ashok Rajput.