Laila case: New methods employed to identify skeletons

Forensic experts are employing a sophisticated technique to identify six skeletons, believed to be those of starlet Laila Khan and her family, even as police are taking prime accused Parvez Tak to the farm house in Nashik district on Tuesday for reconstructing the sequence of events leading to the killings.

"A skull-photo superimposition technique is being used by the forensic team to identify the deceased. With this modern method, the team can prepare a photograph of the deceased using the skull," a senior police official said.

The police have taken two bone samples from neck area and one bone sample from thigh of each skeleton to ascertain their age.

With doubts persisting over the sequence of events that led to the murders, a crime branch team will be taking Tak to Laila's farm house at Igatpuri on Tuesday to decode what had happened on February 7, 2011.

Police are also examining the jewellery and clothes recovered from the spot.

According to police, Tak, the third husband of Laila's mother Shelina, 51, had a heated argument with her on the night of February 7 at the Igatpuri bungalow, following which he hit her with a blunt object, causing her death.

As other members of the family -- Laila, 30, her elder sister Azmina, 32, twin siblings Zara and Imran, 25 and cousin Reshma alias Tulli -- came running down from the first floor after hearing the commotion, Tak called watchman Shakir Hussain Wani, also from Kishtwar, and the two had a scuffle with them.

After killing Imran, the only male member of the family, by hitting him on head with an iron rod, the two killed others. There are grievous injury marks on Imran's skull, the police said.

Police have so far collected DNA samples of mothers of Reshma and Shelina, besides that of Shelina's first husband Nadir Patel.

The deceased family owned a locker in a private bank and we are in the process of finding out its contents, police said.

Sceptical about Tak's claim that the killings took place on the ground floor of the farm house, police are now trying to pick up the trail on the blood stains found on the mattresses on the first floor.