On 11 June 2014, 59-year-old Muhammad Noor, a Pakistani tissue paper seller, was murdered by his two compatriots Rasheed Muhammad (43 years old) and Ramzan Rizwan (25 years old), who both smothered him to death and robbed him of S$6,000, after they lost their own money to Muhammad over a game of cards. Afterwards, Muhammad's corpse was dismembered by the two men using a saw, and his severed legs were packed in a luggage while his upper body was kept in another luggage. The second luggage containing Muhammad's legless body was later found abandoned at a roadside by an 81-year-old man and this discovery was reported to the police, who swiftly arrested the pair for their crime the day after Muhammad's murder. The first luggage containing the severed legs were later found at a Muslim cemetery in Jalan Kubor. The grisly killing and subsequent dismemberment of Muhammad brought shock to the whole of Singapore back in 2014. Although both Rasheed and Ramzan pinned the blame on one another for murdering Muhammad during their joint murder trial, the High Court nonetheless rejected their claims and deemed that both defendants were responsible for the premeditated murder and gruesome dismemberment of Muhammad and hence, both Ramzan and Rasheed were convicted as charged and sentenced to death after a five-day trial on 17 February 2017. They were eventually hanged sometime in 2018.
Discovery of legless body On the evening of 11 June 2014, at Syed Alwi Road in Little India, 81-year-old Tan Tin Loke, a karang guni man (or rag-and-bone man) discovered a grey luggage abandoned at the roadside, and placed it in his trolley, before he continued with his usual routine of picking up cardboard and other reusable trash to sell. But Tan struggled to move the bag, and several passers-by approached to help him. However, it led to them discovering blood flowing out of the luggage and one of the passers-by, 57-year-old cleaner Woo Shin Kwong, reported the matter to the police. The police arrived after receiving the report, and they opened up the luggage, and they found the body of a man stuffed inside the luggage. However, the legs were missing and believed to have been dismembered from the body. Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Roy Lim led the investigations into the case, which was classified as murder. The murdered man was identified as 59-year-old Pakistani national Muhammad Noor, who came from Pakistan to Singapore the previous month to sell tissue paper. The case itself recalled several other high-profile cases of murder where the victim(s) was killed and dismembered, including the Kallang River body parts murder of 2005, the 2005 Orchard Road body parts murder and the British serial killer John Martin Scripps who killed and butchered a South African tourist in 1995 at a hotel in Singapore.
Arrest and investigations After the police took over the investigations, they checked with shops nearby the area Muhammad Noor was found. They recovered the CCTV footage and statements from some shop owners that there were one or two men came to buy two luggages, trash bags, an electric saw and a manual saw. It was deduced that the killer(s) responsible for Muhammad's murder were foreigners and could be staying nearby at Rowell Road, as they were frequently spotted at that area. The next day, the police went to several lodging houses to search and interview the owners. One of them, Neeraj Chandna, who co-owned an unnamed lodging house, was approached by police and he identified the two men as his tenants, 43-year-old Rasheed Muhammad and 25-year-old Ramzan Rizwan. The police thus arrested the two men, and they were later charged with murder. With the help of forensic and fingerprint technology, the fingerprints on the recovered luggage and trash bag were matched to those of the suspects. Both Rasheed and Ramzan, like Muhammad, were also Pakistani citizens who came to Singapore on social visit passes in May 2014 to sell tissue paper like Muhammad. Rasheed, who shared the same room with Muhammad, was married with eight children and wanted to earn money in Singapore to marry off his daughters, while Ramzan himself was married with three children. Both suspects were friends and were also distant relatives, and they both came from the same village as the victim Muhammad Noor back in Pakistan.
Subsequently, after their arrests, one of the suspects Rasheed led the police to Jalan Kubor Muslim Cemetery, where they recovered a smaller luggage that contained the severed legs of Muhammad and a saw. Rasheed and Ramzan were brought back to the crime scene to re-enact the crime. Subsequently, both Rasheed and Ramzan were remanded for psychiatric assessment and were eventually found fit to plead and stand trial. Ramzan was reported to have attempted suicide while in prison awaiting trial. The body of Muhammad was later flown back to Pakistan after his family recovered the corpse for burial at their hometown, and the Pakistani High Commission not only rendered assistance to the victim's bereaved kin, they also stated that they would help ensure legal representation for the two suspects in the upcoming murder trial. According to Neeraj, the owner of the lodging house where the murder took place, he commented that the case itself had caused most of his tenants to move out of the house due to the negative publicity surrounding the gruesome murder case.
Murder trial
Prosecution's case
… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.
