Police in Ramban had been carrying wide scale searches around Ramsu area of the mountainous district from last couple of days to locate three members of Lucknow family after receiving a social media message that the trio was “incommunicado” having got stuck there. However as the facts surfaced, all three of them had been murdered in home town and the alarm regarding them having gone ‘missing’ along Srinagar-Jammu highway at Ramsu turned out to be false. Ramban Police said that UP counterparts have informed police here that the trio was murdered in home town.Earlier reports had said that three members of a family from Lucknow — Mehmood Ali Khan, his wife Darakshan and their son, Shavez — had gone missing in Ramban district while they were on way from Jammu to Srinagar. Earlier reports had said that three members of a family from Lucknow — Mehmood Ali Khan, his wife Darakshan and their son, Shavez — had gone missing in Ramban district while they were on way from Jammu to Srinagar. Police sources said according to Salim Khan, brother-in-law of Mehmood Ali Khan, all 3 members were murdered by elder son, Sarfaraz Khan on January 5, the day they were leaving towards Jammu by train. “After disposing of their dead bodies, he meticulously planned to mislead the relatives and police. He clandestinely visited Jammu and Kashmir and messaged via whatsApp from his father’s mobile phone on 14th January morning in which he posed as his younger brother, Shavez and said that they are stuck on the highway due to landslides.“He even posted some pictures of the highway,” said the sources.The details of the case came to light when the J&K police traced the phone in Lucknow that was used to send WhatsApp message. Police said Sarfraz had murdered his father, mother and brother in Lucknow itself. On January 6 the body of a youth with slit throat was found on Lucknow’s Mall Road in the Itaunja area. Police were unable to identify the body. After this, two more bodies with slit throats were found in the Malihabad area in Lucknow. After the photographs of the three persons allegedly missing in J&K’s Ramban area were published, police in Lucknow were able to identify all the three. Subsequent investigation revealed that the eldest son of the family, Sarfraz had murdered them. Sarfraz has been taken into custody. Police said other contacts of Sarfraz are also being questioned. The motive of the gruesome crime is still not known.
