A woman named Sahiba Bano has been arrested for the murder of Indra Kumar Tiwari, whom she allegedly lured into a fake marriage by posing as Khushi Tiwari to seize his property. Reports say Sahiba Bano targeted 45-year-old Tiwari, a resident of Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh, after seeing a viral video where he told Hindu saint Aniruddhacharya that he owned 18 bighas of land but was unmarried.
The case came to light after police found Tiwari’s body in a drain in the Hata area of Kushinagar, Uttar Pradesh, on June 6. Initially unidentified, the body was later matched to a missing person report from Jabalpur. Police confirmed that Tiwari was stabbed to death.
During the investigation, it was uncovered that after learning about Tiwari’s property from the viral video, Sahiba Bano and her husband Kaushal devised a plan to seize it. Bano assumed a fake identity as Khushi Tiwari and even forged an Aadhaar card. Kaushal, posing as Khushi’s brother, contacted Indra Kumar Tiwari and offered to marry ‘his sister Khushi’ to him.
Bano then began communicating with Indra Kumar. On May 26, Kaushal arrived in Indra’s village of Sohra, Madhya Pradesh, with wedding gifts, and the marriage was scheduled for June 5. However, Kaushal insisted the wedding be held in Gorakhpur, to which Indra agreed.
Unaware of Bano and her husband’s plot, Tiwari began preparing for the wedding. He purchased jewellery worth lakhs for Bano and travelled to Gorakhpur carrying cash and the jewellery. There, Bano and Kaushal staged a fake wedding ceremony at a hotel to deceive him. Indra Kumar even sent wedding photos to his relatives in his village.
The next day, when Tiwari asked his ‘wife’ to come with him to his village, Bano refused, saying she wanted to show him her village first. Hours later, Bano and Kaushal murdered Tiwari and dumped his body in a drain. They looted all his money and jewellery. Police said Bano planned to use the wedding photos to claim ownership of Tiwari’s land as his widow.
Back in Indra Kumar’s village, relatives grew concerned when they lost contact with him after the wedding, as his phone was switched off. They informed the Majhauli police. When villagers, accompanied by police, went to Gorakhpur to search for Tiwari, they learned that the police had recovered an unidentified body, which the villagers confirmed was Indra Kumar. Using the wedding photos sent by Tiwari, the police launched an investigation and successfully arrested Bano and Kaushal.
