Ahmedabad: After cracking two murder cases in six months by following up on local “ghost stories”, the city crime branch has begun systematically collecting reports of similar stories from across Ahmedabad, suspecting they may lead to unreported or undetected killings. In the Sarkhej case, a man was murdered and buried under the kitchen platform of his own home last Nov, and in the Vatva case, a woman’s remains were recovered from a house in Qutubnagar last month, 34 years after she was murdered.Senior crime branch officers said instructions have gone out to all cops to track down reports of ghostly apparitions and investigate their source. Informer networks have also been activated to gather leads. “We have instructed cops to activate their informer network. If a person is seeing a ghost or seeking occult intervention, it could be due to guilt or suspected involvement in or knowledge of an untoward incident in the past. This is what led us to the hidden remains of the murder victims in Vatva and Sarkhej,” a senior crime branch officer said.The officer added that the investigative approach would remain scientific and evidence-based. “The point is that no input should be treated as petty or frivolous. We are open to inquiring into any such ghost stories,” the officer said.With no missing person complaint on record, it was the ghost story itself that cracked the Sarkhej case open. The crime branch received a tip-off that the main accused, Imran Vaghela, had been telling people he was haunted by the ghost of the deceased, Mohammed Ansari. Vaghela, who was in a relationship with Ansari’s wife Ruby, was reportedly tormented by memories of the victim after killing him with his associates. The couple had locked up the house, which locals had begun calling Bhoot Bangla.Acting on the tip-off, cops began hunting for the missing man and planted a cleric on him to coax a confession. Ansari’s body was eventually found buried under the kitchen platform. The murder of Farzana Radhanpuri was detected in the last week of April after the cops excavated a house in Qutubnagar, Vatva, based on a tip-off. The victim’s husband, Shamsuddin Khedawala (61), and his elder brother Iqbal Khedawala (63), have been arrested from Jamalpur for murder, criminal conspiracy and destruction of evidence.
