Former DGP Mustafa & Former Minister Razia Charged With Son’s Murder

On 16 Oct, Aqil Akhtar, 35-year-old son of former Panjab Director General of Police (DGP) Mohammad Mustafa and former Panjab Indian National Congress minister Razia Sultana was found unconscious in his home at Panchkula, a satellite town of Chandigarh in Haryana. He was rushed to the Civil Hospital where he was declared brought dead due to drug overdose. Akil was a lawyer in the Punjab and Haryana High Court who is survived by wife Jainab Akhtar, a son, and a daughter. In a video recorded by Aqil in August 2025, he alleged that his father and his wife were having an affair. After Aqil’s burial, both Mustafa and Razia have been charged with murder. 1985 batch Indian Police Service officer Mustafa used to be close to former Panjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh. Dispute grew between them when Amarinder did not make him head of state police and promoted his junior Dinkar Gupta. After retiring, Mustafa became active in Indian National Congress (INC) and was advisor of its leader Navjot Singh Sidhu. Human rights organization Ensaaf lists Mustafa responsible for 18 cases of abduction or disappearance and/or extrajudicial killings. Meanwhile, the Border Security Force (BSF) posted on the 553-km-long India-Pakistan frontier in Panjab has arrested around 350 smugglers since January 2024, averaging one arrest every alternate day. Also, Panjab has seen a five-fold increase in smuggling of arms from Pakistan through the Panjab border, with 362 weapons, including AK-47 rifles, grenades, and improvised explosive devices, seized so far in 2025  compared to just 81 in 2024. Concurrently, in the Sikhs for Justice legal counsel Gurpatwant Singh Pannun case, the main accused Nikhil Gupta is trying to change his lawyer before the 3 Nov hearing of the case. This is typically done when a defendant wants a last minute delay of the trial and there is no other justification to postpone the hearing (earlier coverage).