Police say he killed his closest friend over a girl living in a city 850 km away, whom neither of them had ever met or seen. Imran Aslam Baba, 20, allegedly smashed the skull of Asrar Mushtaq Dar because he was jealous of Asrar’s ‘friendship’ with a Delhi girl on social networking site Orkut, wrapped the head with cellotape to keep its contents from spilling, and later threw the body in a graveyard.

Investigators have revealed the death of a 19-year-old student that sparked violent, separatist-led protests and shut down Srinagar for three days last week for what it really was: a crime of passion of the kind never seen before in the Kashmir Valley.

Around 12.30 pm on July 4, Srinagar resident Mushtaq Ahmed Dar filed a report at Maisuma police station saying his son Asrar was missing from home since the previous afternoon. On July 7, police found Asrar’s decomposed body at a graveyard near Kathidarwaza, its battered head held together with tape.

As the body was brought to the teen’s home in the volatile Maisuma locality, massive, violent protests erupted in the city. A police vehicle was burnt, and protesters vandalized public property along Srinagar’s main Maulana Azad Road.

Battling separatist allegations that Asrar had been abducted by security forces and killed in custody, almost the entire police force of Srinagar, including its technical unit, joined hands in the investigation. A week and 20 arrests later, this is what they found.

In the months before he died, Asrar, an avid online social networker, had been introduced by his friend, Imran Aslam Baba, to an unknown Delhi girl whom the latter had been courting online on Orkut.

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