It is a stomach-churning story – the saga of Suhaib Ilyasi and his wife Anju ( AKA Afsan) is a tale of passion, a tumultuous relationship, criminal cover-up and possibly a reflection of the seamy underbelly of showbiz. On 20th December 2017, TV producer Ilyasi was convicted and sentenced to life in prison for his wife’s murder – here is everything you wanted to know about the murder that is a strange case of real life imitating reel life.
The two met in 1989 in Delhi in college and married in London a few years later. However, the cracks in the relationship started to appear soon thereafter and Anju left her husband to live with her brother just after six months. The two however reconciled and then their daughter Aaliya was born. After working together on TV shows such as India's Most Wanted (Zee TV), Fugitive Most Wanted (Doordarshan), Anju once again left her husband in 1998.
After yet another rapprochement between the two, Suhaib and Anju bought a house in Delhi and moved into it in December 1999. However, days before a grand party they had planned for Anju’s birthday, on 10th December 2000, Ilyasi called police constables saying that his wife had stabbed herself and asked them to call an ambulance. Anju died of stab wounds by a butcher’s knife and the matter was held to be of suicide.
A few days after the death of Anju, her sister Rashmi Singh arrived from Canada and alleged that this was a case of suicide arising out of dowry demands. It was later, in 2010 that Anju’s mother moved the court seeking that the charge of murder be added to the proceedings in light of new evidence.
In the beginning, Anju’s parents stood by Ilyasi; he was referred to as the ‘perfect son in law’. Even the earlier post-mortem reports suggested that Ilyasi had nothing to do with Anju’s death. However, it was Anju's sister Rashmi who pursued the matter, getting him charged with murder and destruction of evidence. Finally, almost 18 years after the incident, Ilyasi was found guilty of murder and sentenced to a life imprisonment, as well as fined for his crimes.
Ilyasi produced crime related shows that set the trend for other TV programs to follow. One wonders, if it was his first-hand experience with the knowledge of crime that made Ilyasi murder his wife, and more importantly, made him think that he could get away with it?
There was a time when Ilyasi was on the hit list of many criminals because his TV show was the one exposing their criminal activities and he had been given police security because of this. Did his close encounters with crime and criminals inure him to the heinous act that he committed? Was this a case of real life imitating reel life; which in turn was based on real life?
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