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“We were not at home when the carnage took place,” her uncle told local media. “When we went there at around 2 a.m., there was blood all around and the bodies were cut up. The crime was unpardonable.” Step-sisters Renuka Shinde and Seema Gavit were also sentenced to death for kidnapping 13 children and murdering at least five.
Before the carnage, Shabnam Ali worked as a teacher and was popular with her students. Her uncle, Sattar Ali, told
The Times of India she was “every bit the obedient daughter.”
“All of us were shocked. There was some tension in the family due to her relationship with that man, but it was impossible to imagine that it would end that way,” her uncle told
CRIME HUNTER: Female serial killer slated to hang in India torontosun.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from torontosun.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Drugged family before killing
On the intervening night of April 14 and 15, 2008, Shabnam drugged her family and slaughtered them. She was seven weeks pregnant with her lover Saleem s child.
Shabnam s family members were against her relationship with Saleem. Both came from different socio-economic backgrounds and caste.
Her family, Saifi Muslims, were well-to-do landholders, while Saleem, a Pathan, was a class VI dropout, and worked as a daily wager.
Shabnam, a school teacher was in a relationship with Saleem who used to work as a daily wager.
Shabnam s family owned around 30 bigha of land. Her father was an Arts teacher in the local college.
“We have not received any death warrant but have started preparing … Last year in February, the executioner, Pawan Jallad, had inspected the hanging house. He said that there was a problem with the structure of the gallows. We are fixing that now. We have also just ordered two hanging ropes from Bihar’s Buxar central jail,” Mathura senior jail superintendent Shailendra Maitrey told TOI on Wednesday.
Built 150 years ago, the gallows has never been used in independent India. Step-sisters Renuka Shinde and Seema Gavit have been on death row for kidnapping 13 children and killing at least five of them. A woman from Lucknow, Ramshri, had been sentenced to death in 1998 but it was commuted to life imprisonment after she gave birth to a child in prison. So, the hanging house, with creaking structures and covered in overgrowth with decades of disuse, would take a while to set in order should a death warrant be issued.