SHOPIAN; 17, May 2013: The murder case of Bilal Ahmad Bhat whose body was recovered on April 23 has been solved and during investigation it was revealed that Bilal, 28, a resident of Shopian district was killed by three laborers for his Blackberry mobile phone and money.

According to the police, Bhat, a resident of far off Bashkuchan village fell victimto three labourers from Pulwama district who were working in his orchard. “Before murdering Bhat, the trio snatched the BlackBerry cell phone,” said Shopian station house officer (SHO) Irshad Reshi.
It was on April 23, locals spotted the body of Bhat, a contractual lecturer, near hisorchard. The body bore strangulation and violence marks.

“The ATM card was also stolen. They also managed toextract the ATM code from him,” he added.
Around Rs 80,000 were stolen from the victim’s bank account.

All the three accused are from one family. “Out investigations led to arrest of the three people a few days ago. The arrested persons are Ghulam Ahmad and Manzoor Mochi, both sons of Ramzan Sheikh, and their nephew Gulzar,” said Reshi.

The police said the trio after interrogation confessed to the crime. “They had strangulated him to death and dumped his body,” the SHO said.