The HAL police on Saturday arrested a 54-year-old software engineer for allegedly poisoning his 45-year-old female friend to death to make it look like suicide. 

The police, growing suspicious of the woman’s death, checked the call record details before arresting Imdad Basha. He was charged with murder and remanded in judicial custody.

According to the police, the victim, Uzma Khan, was found dead at Basha’s apartment on January 1. Basha was also found half-conscious in the same apartment. Police opened an unnatural death report under suspicious death. 

“A resident of the same apartment complex had called the police helpline after hearing loud noises from Basha’s apartment. When we reached the apartment, both Basha and Uzma were found lying on the floor. Basha had claimed that they both decided to end their lives and consumed poison. However, Uzma’s brother found something amiss and ran a few checks to ascertain Basha’s role in his sister’s death,” said the police.

Uzma’s brother found that on the night of December 31, Basha sent his sister a picture of food he cooked. He suspected that Basha invited Uzma to his home on the occasion of the new year and fed her food laced with poison.

Based on this suspicion, Uzma’s brother filed a complaint claiming that Basha killed his sister. Police eventually arrested him and sent him to judicial custody. 

According to the police, both Uzma and Basha were married to different people but later got divorced from their respective partners. They had then decided to get married. 

“Uzma’s parents wanted to get her married again, and they started looking for a groom. She had even started talking with a potential groom,” the officer said. 

Basha recently discovered that Uzma was talking to someone else and decided to eliminate her, according to the police. In this bid, he allegedly poisoned Uzma, and consumed a small dose of poison to create an alibi.