Studied till Class 6, Raped 75-year-old, Killed for Pleasure: Profile of A 'Devil' from God's Own Country

The life of 52-year-old Mohammed Shafi alias Rasheed, the prime accused in the Elanthoor double ‘human sacrifice’ case, may not be suitable for the faint-hearted. It contains graphic details of gory activities laced with the blood of hapless victims, according to police.

Mohammed Shafi, a native of Perumbavoor in Ernakulam district, studied only up to class 6. Married to Nabeesa, he is the father of two girls and grandfather to a three-year-old girl. He did many jobs: from being a driver to a mechanic. He was most recently running a middle-class hotel in Kochi where he could pick his victims, mainly hapless women in distress without much contact with their families.

The trial is pending against him in the case of raping a 75-year-old woman in 2020. The Puthencruz police in Kochi registered the first information report (FIR) on August 3, 2020, and filed the charge sheet on October 17. The case was registered against him when he was a truck driver. He brutally raped the woman and also made wounds in her private parts with a knife. “We have found out that the same places were injured in the two women who were murdered apparently as human sacrifice,” said Kochi City Police Commissioner H Nagaraju while elaborating on the double murder case to the media on Tuesday.

Shafi was in the habit of befriending his victims and he started a relationship with the co-accused couple in the double murder three years ago, according to police.

“It has now been proven that he (Shafi) is a psychopath and a sexual pervert. He derives sexual pleasure from his actions and will go to any extent, even kill for it. He had been using a fake Facebook account and it says that if anyone has financial problems, they can contact him. That’s how he befriended Bhagaval Singh, and his wife Laila. It took three years for him to win their confidence and trap them after which the crime took place,” said the commissioner. He added that Shafi got excited at the sight of blood rushing out of the wounds of his victims.

According to the police, though there is no evidence, there are also reports that Shafi made the couple cook the flesh from the bodies of the two women they had killed. Laila had said this in her statement. There are also reports that Shafi even had sex with Laila in front of her husband and third accused Bhagaval Singh, after convincing them that it was part of the ritual. He used to witness this act with folded hands as if in prayer. According to the latest inputs, Shafi and Laila had a plan to eliminate Singh, fearing he would leak information about the murders.

According to his wife Nabeesa, Shafi does not have a bank account of his own and he did not bring any money home. She said Shafi cannot be said to be innocent. However, she does not believe that he masterminded the crimes and committed ‘human sacrifice’.

According to her, drinking is the root cause of all his problems. Shafi is believed to have lost his way due to alcoholism. He was a habitual drinker and made trouble at home. According to Nabeesa, Shafi was using her cellphone and Facebook account as well.

Now it has emerged that Shafi used a fake social media account to establish a relationship with Bhagaval Singh. He used a woman’s profile, Sreedevi. Shafi spoke highly about the healer and convinced Singh that he could bring him economic prosperity. Singh had the shock of his life when he came to know about the real Sreedevi while he was taken into custody. Singh never suspected that the healer he was introduced to was the ‘woman’ he had met on social media.

Shafi, days before the arrest, also tried to mislead the police by trapping his friend Muhammad Bilal. The 26-year-old autorickshaw driver had to be at the police station for two days as Shafi told the cops that Bilal was behind the kidnapping. Shafi told the police that Bilal was using his Scorpio car on rent on September 26 after officials found the CCTV visuals of the victim Padma entering the vehicle on the day. The police let Bilal go after they got enough evidence against Shafi in the crime.