A 26-year-old Muslim gym trainer identified as Mohammad Imran, alias Aqib, strangled and stabbed a 21-year-old Hindu woman to death inside her home in West Delhi on August 26, after weeks of alleged harassment and threats. Police identified the victim as Muskan Sharma, a Delhi University student and part-time model and content creator, and arrested her former gym trainer two days after the killing.
Police sources have confirmed that Imran had visited Muskan’s home in Old Mahavir Nagar, Tilak Nagar, on the evening of August 26, where she stayed alone. CCTV cameras captured him entering the building between 5:40 pm and 5:45 pm.
According to reports, Imran strangled Muskan before stabbing her multiple times with a knife and fleeing the scene. A domestic worker later found her lying seriously injured on the floor and alerted people in the neighborhood. Her relatives and neighbors rushed her to a hospital, but doctors declared her dead on arrival.
Imran also took the victim’s mobile phone after the attack in an attempt to erase or destroy digital evidence that could link him to the crime. According to police, he allegedly tried to delete data from the iPhone, but failed. He subsequently discarded the device near a drain in West Delhi. Police later recovered the phone, and the device ultimately helped investigators trace Imran. Officials formed several teams and launched a search for Imran. Investigators examined CCTV footage and followed other leads before locating him in Rajouri Garden on August 27.
Police said officers confronted Imran and ordered him to surrender. According to the police account, Imran pulled out a pistol and fired several rounds at the officers. The police team returned fire and shot him in both legs. Officers arrested him and took him to Guru Gobind Singh Hospital for treatment.
Investigators have since examined Imran’s relationship with Muskan and the events that preceded the murder. Police claim the two had known each other for about 18 months after meeting at the gym where Imran worked as a trainer. Their relationship later deteriorated, and Muskan decided to distance herself from him. Officials also suspect that Imran became increasingly possessive after Muskan ended the relationship, and are examining whether jealousy and anger over the change in their relationship motivated the attack. However, Muskan’s family has discounted such assumptions.
Muskan’s family has also accused the police of failing to act on earlier warnings. Muskan had approached a police station on July 18 and complained that Imran was harassing her. Police sources also verify that Imran had a history of drug use and was sent to a de-addiction center after a complaint from Muskan’s family. He was released on July 30 after allegedly injuring himself while at the center. Muskan’s family has alleged that Imran continued harassing and following her for several months and said they expected police to have intervened before the situation escalated.
A worker at the gym said that Imran had worked there for around three months before being removed about two months ago over alleged inappropriate behavior with customers. Another gym employee added that Imran was removed after he attempted suicide at his rented accommodation.
The investigation has also brought Imran’s alleged criminal history into focus. Police records show that authorities booked him in 2018 under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offenses (POCSO) Act in a case involving sexual harassment of a minor.
Police had again booked Imran in another case in 2021 after he brutally attacked a man with a stone slab, inflicting severe head injuries that left the victim in a coma. Investigators are now examining those cases as they assess Imran’s background and his previous interactions with law enforcement.
The family’s allegation of police inaction has now placed the police response under scrutiny. Authorities must explain what officers did after receiving the warnings, and why those warnings failed to trigger stronger preventive measures. It is important to highlight here that the pattern of the Indian judiciary or police going soft on criminals from a Muslim background is not a new one. In a country with a massive Muslim population, such leniency has been used for decades and by almost all political parties either to retain their large consolidated vote blocs or to woo it.
The case has now raised important connected questions as to whether authorities could have prevented the murder. Her family argues that police knew about the alleged threats before the attack, and should have taken stronger action.
Investigators are reconstructing the events that led to August 26. They will examine CCTV footage, phone records, witness statements and police records to determine the sequence of events and establish what happened after Muskan and her family allegedly approached authorities.
For Muskan’s family, the investigation carries a deeply painful question. They say they warned police about the man they feared, yet he allegedly reached Muskan’s home and killed her weeks later. The investigation will have to determine whether authorities missed an opportunity to protect the young Hindu woman from her Muslim harasser and whether officials followed every required procedure after receiving the earlier warnings.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
The cops should have just killed him, and then held his body, so that a muslim mob couldn’t have rallied behind this latest shaheed. That way, no future Muskan Sharmas would have been threatened by him. Hopefully, that hospital botches his treatment
Namer says
Why do so many women worldwide fall for these bad boy muslims? It always seems to end with rape and murder but the women never learn.
JeffS says
How about India deport all their Muslims to Pakistan and Bangladesh, and the tiny amount of non-Muslims in those countries go to India? Wasn’t that the original reason for the partition?
Big Dude says
This trash is going around the world. Sadly, these adherents of the most violent of beliefs, and infecting and infesting Europe, the Americas and even Australia. Well, all I can say is that in the name of openness and equality, the rulers of these nations have decided that dead citizens are perfectly ok, as long as there is no Islamophobia. Better a thousand dead kuffars than one even scintilla of Islamophobia. Europe and the world is fked.