case 3: backstory

"The court verdict is an insult to my son's memory," said Aslam Patrawala, father of 16-year-old Adnan who was found murdered in Navi Mumbai in 2007.

The businessman from Oshiwara could not believe that the court acquitted the four suspects of his son's murder because of lack of evidence.

"But, I know that justice will be delivered to us one day," he said, wiping his tears. "I will appeal in the high court and will follow the case until the killers are sent to the gallows."

Aslam, however, refused to blame the police for the acquittals.

"The police did the best they could. I was with them at every step of the investigation," he said.

Tragedy hit the Patrawala on August 18, 2007, when Adnan left home in his father's Skoda saying he was going to meet a friend at a mall in Malad.

He did not return home at night.

The next morning, the Patrawalas got a call from an unidentified man claiming to have kidnapped Adnan. The caller demanded Rs2 crore as ransom.

The family contacted the police for help, and as the media published news of the kidnapping and subsequent police investigation, the kidnappers panicked and strangled Adnan. They dumped his body in the bushes on Palm Beach Road in Navi Mumbai and abandoned his car nearby. His body was found on August 20, 2007.

But, even after more than four years, Lubana cannot talk about her youngest son without breaking down.

"Even after all these years I cannot forget Adnan's last words to me. The abductors let him talk to me on the phone on August 19, 2007. My son was crying… he kept pleading to be rescued," she said, glancing at the telephone next to her on which they had got the ransom call.

"We have still kept most of Adnan's stuff. We still feel his presence with us."

Adnan's aunt Sufiya Patel said the incident has made the family 'overprotective' about their children. "We don't allow our children to go out alone. An elder always accompany them."

Adnan's elder sister Firdous, 24, discontinued her studies for a year because she was scared to step out of the house and his elder brother Abdullah was so traumatised that he could not concentrate on his studies.

"The fear now runs deep inside our family," said Patel.

Refusing to forgive the killers, Adnan's grandmother Zulekha Patrawala, 70, said: "I want to kill those people who killed my Adnan. Even if they are free now, they will not be able to leave peacefully. They will die a brutal death."

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