Hyderabad: Extramarital affair leads to murder of news reporter, four held

Hyderabad: An extramarital affair allegedly led to the murder of news reporter Mohammed Iqbal at Rajendranagar on June 11, the police said.

Four persons, including the victim’s wife, were arrested by the Rajendranagar police. The arrested persons were Mohammed Lateef, 32, Mohd Osman, 21, Shaik Sofian, 21, and Meraj Begum, 36, the victim’s wife.

Mohammed Iqbal alias Pramod Kumar, 40, a resident of Golconda and native of Uttar Pradesh, worked as a news reporter for a YouTube channel.

DCP (Shamshabad) R Jagadeeshwar Reddy said Iqbal had married Meraj Begum around 17 years ago and the couple lived at Golconda. A few years ago, Lateef had borrowed Rs.2 lakh from Iqbal and using that pretext, used to visit Iqbal’s home often. He also became friends with Meraj Begum. On learning this, Iqbal warned Lateef to stay away from his wife. Lateef then planned to kill Iqbal, he said.

“On June 11, when they came to know through Meraj that Iqbal was going to Siddipet on his scooter, Lateef and two others waylaid him at Tolichowki and kidnapped him and shifted him in a car. While the car was on the move, the assailants stabbed Iqbal to death,” the DCP said, adding that they took the body to Musi River in Sun City and after tying a cement block to it with a nylon rope, dumped it in the river.

The police on suspicion tracked down Lateef, who confessed to the murder during questioning.