Suhaib Ilyasi's wife, Anju, had died under mysterious circumstances in January 2000
Suhaib Ilyasi, best remembered as the host of the once popular television crime series 'India's Most Wanted', has been convicted in connection with the death of his wife 17 years ago, news agency ANI reported on Saturday.
His wife, Anju Ilyasi, was rushed to a hospital with stab wounds on 11 January 2000. She didn't make it.
Anju's death - she was then 30 - was initially treated as a suicide.
But a few months later, Anju's mother and sister told the sub divisional magistrate inquiring into the suicide, that her daughter had been driven to suicide by Suhaib Ilyasi.
Ilyasi was initially arrested for harassing his wife for dowry that led to her death, a charge that he had vehemently denied at that time.
The autopsy report hadn't been able to establish if Anju had stabbed herself or was murdered.
A twist in this case came many years later when Anju's mother demanded that Suhaib Ilyasi should be tried for murder. The trial court rejected this demand but the Delhi High Court ordered the east Delhi court in 2014 to try him for murder as well.
Ilyasi's career as a producer and host of India's Most Wanted was at its peak in 2000 when Anju died.
Inspired by Crime Stoppers, a crime busting television show that he had seen during his stay in London, "India's Most Wanted" was India's first television show on criminals on the run. After his arrest, and subsequent release, Suhaib launched a similar show again. But this time, it did not click.
He later launched a magazine, Bureaucracy Today, on civil servants and governance issues that was published from a mosque on Delhi's upscale Kasturba Gandhi Marg where his father was the top cleric.