Two women stabbed in their sleep, cops launch hunt for ‘disturbed’ man
GHAZIABAD : Panic has set in the Maharajpur locality in Sahibabad after two women, while they were sleeping, were allegedly attacked with a knife by an unidentified man over a span of 26 hours. Police have beefed up security in the area as they suspect a ‘psychologically disturbed’ man is on the rampage.
According to police, in both the incidents, the assailant inflicted deep injuries to the two women -- Shahnaz Ansari, 32, and Hasnuma Khatoon, 30. While Shahnaz sustained an injury to her head in her ground floor house around 3.15pm on Thursday, Khatoon suffered a deep cut on her face around 5pm on Friday, police said, adding that both the victims are out of danger.
Police said that they have registered an FIR under IPC Section 307 (attempt to murder) following an assault on Shahnaz. Another FIR under IPC section 324 (causing hurt by dangerous means or weapons) was lodged in the second case. Both FIRS were lodged at Link Road police station. “The man entered my house quietly, picked up a knife and stabbed me on the head before fleeing. Locals rushed me to a doctor who referred me to a hospital in Vaishali. My husband was out for work when the incident took place,” Shahnaz said.
Her husband Aslam Ansari, an e-rickshaw driver, rushed to the hospital when he got a call about the incident. “I almost fainted seeing my wife bleeding profusely. But the doctors at the hospital pulled out the knife. I had left my house at 3.08pm as per the footage from a nearby CCTV camera. Nearly 15 minutes later, the assailant arrived and stabbed my wife,” he added.
The family is from Banka district in Bihar.
Khatoon, a native of Madhepura in Bihar, is scared and not stepping out of her house. “I was sleeping in the bedroom when I felt a sharp pain. I thought that my children might have hurled something. Soon, I realised that it was a deep cut on my face with a knife... I could see the assailant fleeing. He had brought the knife with him and left it in my house,” Khatoon added. “I was taken to a doctor. At the clinic, people told me about a similar incident a day before. I am very scared now.” Mohammad Makhdoom Alam, Khatoon’s husband, said that the assailant tried to inflict deep injury before fleeing the spot. The couple stays along with their two sons aged five and seven.
Police said they initially suspected some personal rivalry in the first case, but after a similar incident in the same locality, they changed the line of investigation. s“we suspect that the same unidentified man seen in the CCTV footage could be the assailant in both the cases. In both incidents, he assaulted the women when they were sleeping. It seems that the man is psychologically disturbed and he did not want to kill them. The two houses are located within a distance of about 250 metres. We have formed five teams to nab the suspect,” said Gyanendra Kumar Singh, superintendent of police (city 2).
The officials said that they have deployed policemen in plain clothes in the area and have also roped in informers to trace the suspect. “We are trying to trace the suspect. All the CCTV cameras in the area are being scanned,” said an officer from Link Road police station.