How famed TV anchor Suhaib Ilyasi became India's most wanted

Twenty years ago when Suhaib Ilyasi took the reins of popular reality crime show Indias Most Wanted on Zee TV he did something unimaginable he made criminals and their horrifying crimes a part of drawing room conversations engaging both the young and old Earlier this week when the former producer and TV host was sentenced to life imprisonment by a Delhi court for the murder of his wife Anju found dead in her home in 2000 the irony of how he went from becoming a selfproclaimed crusader against crimes to a criminal was not misplacedSuhaib Ilyasi being escorted by police at a court in New Delhi on Wednesday PicPTIIn judge SK Malhotras words Ilyasi had committed her Anjus murder and gave it a colour of suicide and in doing so not only broke the faith of his deceased wife but also that of his nationwide audience at large This case with its many twists could well be among the cases 51yearold Ilyasi once featured on his crime show except that this time as proven in court it was all scripted by himThe crime and coverupOn January 10 2000 Anju was found dead in her home in Mayur Vihar Delhi after a heated argument with her husband At the time the couple had been married for seven years and had a daughter Aaliya In his statement to the subdivisional magistrate SDM Ilyasi had claimed that Anju had committed suicide stabbing herself twice to death He had also said that no blood was spilled due to the stab wounds and that only a transparent liquid oozed out of her Aaliya 3 was also present in the house during the incident but in another roomIlyasi rose to fame with Indias Most Wanted a crime show he anchored in the late 90sBy then Ilyasis TV show which first began airing in March 1998 had already become a super hit A source said that his aura and clout at the time was such that even the incredulousness of the transparent liquid theory was overlooked during the inquest proceedings carried out shyby the SDM Later when blood was found in the sink and bathroom Ilyasi said that it was menstrual blood which the postmortem report had proved as false A panel of doctors however claimed the wounds to be selfinflicted and Ilyasi was let offSpeaking with midday SDM Ravi Dadhich whose inquest report declaring Anjus death as a case of suicide was the basis of the FIR that was registered said I had submitted the report based on the postmortem report and my observation of the incident As the victim was brought dead to the hospital there was no scope of dying declarationIlyasi with wife Anju and daughter AaliyaThe prosecution alleged that the investigating authorities ignored several loopholes in the case For instance though Anju had sustained stab wounds to her abdomen the Tshirt that she had worn on the fateful day didnt bear any tear mark Ilyasi even failed to give a satisfactory reply as to how blood had travelled to the bed bathroom sink and drainAnjus mother Rukma Singh however couldnt look past the glaring discrepancies in the scene of crime Her elder daughter Rashmi had shared with her evidence of Ilyasis forged educational degree false passport details of an extramarital affair and a possible homosexual liaison with a close friendcumfan Narender Chaddha It was on the basis of Rashmis statement that Ilyasi first got arrested on March 28 2000 on charges of dowry harassment He was however released on bail in JuneA lone battle for RukmaRukma Singh 73 was in the US visiting her daughter Rita when the news of her daughters death was broken to her I was told that there was some fight and that my daughter got killed I did not know what to make of it My husband KP Singh who was just minutes away from their home went to their house There were too many people there including some of Suhaibs brothers He had cataract at that time so he could not spot the blood stains she said in a telephonic interview from her home in DelhiIt took Rukma nearly 35 hours to reach Delhi due to the January fog I was dazed and confused about what was going on The SDM took my initial statement and I didnt know what I was saying Until then I thought she had shot herself but later I was told that she had stab wounds I had no idea how a knife came into this storyRukma said it took her a while to process what had happened The more she thought of it the more she was unable to piece the puzzle together In his statement Suhaib had said that Anju had his loaded gun and was trying to shoot herself when he snatched it away from her If she also had a knife why didnt he snatch that too she asked The most important evidence came in the form of her daughters diary which she found at her home where she had written in detail about the physical and mental harassment by IlaysiA family dividedEven as it became clearer to Rukma that the case was of murder she received no support from her husband or son Criminal lawyer Satender Sharma who has been fighting the case for the prosecution said KP Singh an erstwhile professor in IIT Kanpur was intimidated by the persona of his soninlaw and did not want to speak against him The same was the case with Prashant The family was divided on the issueRukma agreed My husband now 93 kept giving statements in Suhaibs favour It didnt seem to matter to him that his daughter was murdered Initially he was not in favour of the interreligious marriage But as Suhaibs stardom grew there was a change in his behaviour towards his soninlaw she saidIlyasi was shorttempered recalled Rukma To be honest my daughter also had a temper and they had fights frequently Once he Suhaib had even raised his hand to hit Anju in front of us I knew he had a murderous rage But is rage enough reason for murderSuhaib the friend and colleagueThose whove worked closely with Ilyasi also remember him as someone who lost his cool quickly A longtime colleague who wishes not to be named said that when Ilyasis father Jameel Ilyasi who was the head of All India Organisation of Imams came in close contact with the RSS and announced that he would be supporting the BJP Ilyasi in a fit of rage broke everything in his office including TV sets The colleague claimed that Ilyasi was also a workaholic one of the reasons behind the marital tension Ilyasi met Anju at the Jamia Millia Islamia University in November 1989 and soon fell in love Their families were not happy with their relationship but they got married in London in 1993 where Suhaib was working at that time under the Special Marriage Act the colleague saidAnju we are told could not adjust to the lifestyle of her inlaws Having grown up in a gated IIT campus in Kanpur she could not cope with the orthodox ways of Ilyasis family who forced her to quit her career The couple soon shifted to an apartment in Mayur Vihar where Anju was leading a lonely life he added He was however a doting father I remember once while I was in his cabin he had spoken to Aaliya around six times in 30 minutes he said Ilyasi had also named his production house Aaliya Productions after his daughterTarique Faridy a filmmaker who was Ilyasis junior in college however described Ilyasi as humble and cooperative After he shot to fame in 1999 I remember requesting him for an interview for my college project He agreed immediately and called me to the location where he was shooting in Delhi I found him to be humble The duo kept in touch after that In 2004 when I became a producer at India TV Ilyasi had signed a deal with us to host India TVs Most Wanted Later however the idea got scrapped But I always found him to be punctual dedicated and disciplined about his work said Faridy who was also invited to the premiere of 498AThe Wedding Gift the only film Ilyasi had made Faridy also remembered how Ilyasi had become a chain smoker after the death of his wifeHow tide turned against IlyasiCriminal lawyer Sharma took on the case as prosecution attorney in 2005 Building a case of murder against a man as powerful as Ilyasi seemed a near impossible task I remember Ajay Agarwal then director general prisons Tihar in the race to be commissioner of police was at the postmortem for three hours After the case was registered he took Ilyasi in his official car to the police station So you can imagine the influence he wielded he recalledAfter taking into account the discrepancies in the scene of crime and Ilyasis statement Sharma in 2011 moved application in the trial court stating that Section 302 punishment for murder be added to the case After multiple rounds of rejection he moved high court in 2011 It took another three years until Sharmas petition was granted by Justice Indermeet Kaur of the Delhi High Court Ilyasi tried to interfere with the proceedings several times After the new board of five doctors established that it was a case of homicide he accused two of them of attempting to extort him He was clearly trying to pressurise the doctorsIlyasi is also said to have tried to control the media Pramod Singh city editor of Pioneer who had covered the case from day one told midday Ilyasi was ambitious and arrogant He even threatened me once when I started questioning his role in Anjus death He had choreographed events to mislead the police by planting evidence in the form of two policemen who were posted at his house for security He took time to inform the police as he had first taken his wife to a nearby nursing home He playacted before the media and vowed to build a memorial for his wife just like Taj Mahal Singh saidIlyasis game said Singh was finally busted by the second team of forensic experts that looked into the case in 2013 They said that the nature of knife injuries on Anjus upper and lower abdomen were not selfinflicted but were homicidal he said After several rounds of arguments in court the verdict was finally announced on December 16 and Ilyasi was sentenced to lifetime imprisonment I saw Ilyasi change in court as the case proceeded Initially he was on his high horse but when 302 was levelled against him he seemed frazzled No matter how much you try to exercise your influence outside court in a trial it is evidence that matters the most said SharmaIlyasi will now be appealing against the judgment in the Delhi High Court after it opens in the first week of January His attorney Manu Sharma said I am more than confident of our chances this time It is a case based on circumstantial evidence and the circumstances are not compelling enough As for Rukma she is relieved that justice has been served after 18 years Everyone was scared of him but I was not I knew if I were right he could do nothing What more could he have done except murder me perhaps And had he done that or even tried to he would have dug his own grave I dont know what will happen when he appeals next year For now I am satisfied that he is convictedCatch up on all the latest Mumbai news current affairs from Mumbai local news crime news and breaking headlines hereDownload the new midday Android and iOS apps to get updates on all the latest and trending stories on the go