Neighbours of Mohammad Asad, who is accused of killing his mother and four sisters at a hotel here, have alleged that the entire family was living in India illegally.

The police, however, have found documents that suggest Asad’s ancestors lived in Badaun in 1947, at the time of India’s Independence.

Asad, 24, had accused four neighbours in Islam Nagar, Agra, for harassing his family and pushing them to a situation when he, along with his father Mohammad Badar, decided to take such an extreme step.

It has come to light that Badar, who is absconding, had lodged a complaint against the four neighbours on the chief minister’s online complaint portal and a police team had visited their house in Agra on December 23 but they were not there.

Sources in the police claimed that Badar had contacted a Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader in Agra in early December 2024 seeking his help to deal with his neighbours and expressing his wish to convert to Hinduism.

“But he didn’t follow up with the VHP leader thereafter,” said a police officer in Lucknow, requesting not to
be named.

Speaking to reporters on Thursday, one of the neighbours whom Asad had blamed for his family’s plight, told local reporters: “They are Bangladeshis and so they ran away from here in fear of being arrested. They were also not of sound mind.”

Mohammad Aftab, with whom Asad had fought on December 18, said: “My grocery store is near Badar’s house. They had parked a cycle in front of my store and pelted me with stones when I asked them to remove it.”

But another neighbour said Aftab and others wanted them to sell their house at a throwaway price and leave the place.

Although one of the neighbours claimed that Asad had married two women, another said he was married to a local girl in 2017 but got separated in within a year.

A police officer said: “We have found papers from their house in Agra which indicate that their elders were living in Badaun district in 1947. This means they are very
much Indian.”