A MAN known to bookies as the ‘Angry Indian’ was on Wednesday (17) found guilty of murdering his wife after she challenged him for gambling away their income.
Jalal Uddin, 47, stabbed his wife, 31-year-old Asma Begum, more than 50 times following the row.
The Indian restaurant chef had a gambling habit and his wife had told police in October 2016 that they regularly argued about money. He was also physically abusive towards his wife.
Police were called by London Ambulance Service on January 11 this year to the flat where the couple lived in City Island Way. They found Begum dead on the kitchen floor with multiple stab and slash wounds to her head, neck and elsewhere on her body.
Uddin handed himself in at Croydon police station the next day and he was charged with murder.
The investigation was led by detective inspector Brett Hagen of the Specialist Crime Command, who said the guilty conviction could be of some small comfort to Begum’s grieving family.
Hagen said: “Asma Begum was a kind and loving mother to three young children. She was doing her level best to make ends meet whilst reliant on benefits to support herself and her family.
“Her husband, Jalal Uddin, had a gambling addiction and continually wasted what little money they had on betting. The day before her brutal death, Uddin withdrew £200 in cash from Asma’s bank account and gambled it away within an hour of withdrawing the money from the cashpoint. That money was meant to be used to provide food and sundries for his family.
“The following day, when Asma challenged Uddin about the cash, she was subjected to a sustained knife attack, which left her with truly horrific injuries and in excess of 50 stab and slash wounds to her head and neck.
“Asma’s lifeless body was found by her family members. The scene greeting them and the emergency services personnel who attended that day will invariably live with them forever. Uddin was seen walking calmly away from their block of flats in Tower Hamlets and he subsequently handed himself into a police station several hours later stating to the station officer: ‘My wife hurt me.’”
Begum and Uddin were married in Bangladesh in August 2007 and they had a son and twin daughters. At the time of Begum’s murder, the boy was aged 10 and the girls were four years old.
Paying tribute to Begum, her family said: “Asma was more than just a mother, wife, sister and aunt. She was an amazing mother who put her children first at all costs.
“Anyone who met her could always find a friend in her. She was loving, caring and always filled any room with laughter.
“This is a huge loss to our family, three children have lost their mother. We have lost a sister, an aunt and friend. The hole that has been left in our lives can never be filled.”
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