Starlet Laila Khan shot dead in 2011, trail leads to Jammu and Kashmir

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In a startling revelation made by Parvez Tak to the Kashmir police, missing Bollywood starlet Laila Khan was shot dead along with four family members in a Mumbai suburb in February, 2011.

They were allegedly killed by local financier Asif Sheikh and real-estate developer Afghan Khan along with accomplices. They wanted to lay their hands on her property and that of mother Selina Begum, divorced wife of Nadir Shah Patel, a Mumbai businessman.

Maharashtra ATS sources said they had nabbed Asif and handed him over to the crime branch. A Mumbai police team is in Kashmir to take custody of Tak.

Laila, alleged to have terror links, went missing along with four family members in February 2011. The police started investigating on a missing complaint from her father Nadir Patel. After the case started getting murkier by the day, it was handed over to the crime branch on Wednesday.

Based on Nadir’s complaint, a kidnapping case was registered against Asif Sheikh and Parvez Tak.

The case was being simultaneously investigated by Jammu and Kashmir police after it found a Mitsubishi Outlander registered in Laila’s name abandoned in a marketplace in eastern Kishtwar town a few months ago.

The investigations led to the arrest of a local criminal Parvaiz Iqbal Tak who during sustained interrogation broke down earlier this week disclosing that the starlet and her family members were shot dead in a wooded area and buried there on February 9, 2011.

Confirming this, DIG Doda-Kishtwar range Gareeb Bass said Tak had revealed that Laila was killed along with her mother Selina, sister Zara, brother Imran and cousin Reshma in an isolated area on the outskirts of Mumbai.

The killings, he told his interrogators, were executed jointly by Bollywood financier Asif Sheikh alias Sonu, real estate builder Afghan Khan and two other criminals.

Tak who had married Selina after she was divorced by her husband Nadir is a witness to the crime.

He has also told interrogators that Laila and others were taken to the isolated area of Mumbai, which he does not know by name but could identify, on February 9, 2011.

This on the pretext that they had to fly to Dubai as they faced threat to their lives from the underworld in view of huge property in their possession which the starlet’s mother had received after divorce from her husband.

Two shooters had already been hired by Afghan Khan and the due shot dead Laila and her family members, the moment the victims alighted from their vehicles.

Later, the corpses were hurriedly buried in nearby woods and the assailants left the place in a Mitsubishi Outlander and a Scorpio and relocated to Jammu where they stayed in Hotel Asia for three days.

While Tak later left for hometown Kishtwar in the Outlander after payment, the Scorpio was abandoned by them at City’s Ranbir Market. Sonu and Khan chose to take a flight back to Mumbai. After the recovery of Outlander in Kishtwar, Tak went underground to escape arrest.

But he was spotted by Kishtwar police at Bagh-e-Bahu, a recreation place in Jammu town, and taken into custody.

Initially, he had claimed that Laila had escaped to Dubai along with her other family members for the fear of Khan and Sonu but sustained interrogation led to his spilling the beans and narrating the entire story - from his entering into Laila’s house as a cook to his marrying her mother to the gruesome killing of the five family members.

"We can verify the claims made by Tak only once we get his custody. Our team is there with a production warrant. We have registered a kidnapping case based on the complaint give by Nadir who alleges that they were kidnapped by Asif and Parvez," said Himanshu Roy, joint commissioner of police, crime.

Meanwhile Nadir on Thursday said, "I had alerted Selina against Asif and Parvez long back. Everything is being done for property. The police have also found a PAN card that bears my name but the photo on it is of Parvez."