Nayantara Ali (Unsolved Murder)

It was a normal Friday morning in November 1994 and 11 year old Nayantara Ali left her home in Forest Gate, East London, to walk to school. It should have taken less than 15 minutes but Nayantara never arrived. Family members reported her missing later that day and for three weeks there was no hint of what had happened to the confident and playful young girl. Worst fears were realised when Nayantara was found murdered just a stone's throw from her front door and in a spot already searched by police.

Sources for the episode can be found here

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Nayantara Ali

This episode deals with a crime committed against a child. Please exercise self-care when choosing to listen.

Just a note regarding the pronunciation of the name, Nayantara. On the BBC crimewatch program broadcast on December 2nd 1994 it is pronounced as neigh un tara. When I looked up how to pronounce the name all Pakistani and Asian pronunciations had it as Nye -un- tara. So that is how I have said it.

11 year old Nayantara Ali, “Nayan” for short, lived with her maternal grandmother, two aunts and younger sister in a terraced house on Pevensey Road, Forest Gate, in the East London borough of Newham. Forest Gate is known for its Victorian and Georgian style homes, and is one of the most ethnically diverse areas in England. Extended family members lived nearby, including two uncles who visited regularly. One of these uncles, 28 year old Aleem, was a student at the University of East London. Nayan’s mother Yasmin split her time between Pakistan and the UK.  Much of her life was taken up in caring for her disabled husband.  

Nayan had a playful character; she enjoyed teasing her grandmother and would jokingly raise her eyebrows over her bad cooking. She would also mess around with her uncle, taking his deodorant and putting it on herself when he wasn't looking, as well as making fun of him for being too old to be a university student. While Nayan had a sense of humour she was also quite mature and self confident. 

On the morning of Friday November 4th 1994 both the 11 year old school girl and her grandmother awoke at the same time. Due to their rather cramped living arrangements the two shared a bedroom. After getting dressed the pair enjoyed a glass of milk together before sitting down in the living room. The doting grandmother brushed and oiled Nayan’s long, thick, dark hair which she then plaited. According to reports, at 8.15am Nayan left her home and headed to school on foot. She took with her 50p for dinner money and a canvas duffle bag which contained her PE kit and school books.

Nayantara was a year 7 pupil at Tom Hood School, which was less than a 15 minute walk to the north west. The school no longer exists as it amalgamated with Cann Hall Primary in 2010 and became Buxton School, educating children from 3-16.

What happened after Nayantara left for school remains a mystery. According to reports  she was spotted by several different people after she left the house. One friend thought she saw Nayan at around 8.15am buying sweets at a shop on Odessa Road. From here Nayan would have needed to go down Woodhouse Road to arrive at the back entrance to the school. As detailed on the BBC Crimewatch TV feature (December 2nd 1994)  there was also a sweet shop situated on Dames Road. Nayantara may have walked this way and gone to the front entrance of the school. The school girl did often choose to walk this way. If Nayantara did go in this direction she would have passed Wanstead flats. This is not an apartment complex but an area of open grassland which forms the southernmost tip of the Epping forest. Whatever route Nayan took that morning, we do know for certain that she never made it to the school gates.

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A normal day would usually see Nayantara home by 3.55pm. She was never late.  But this day was different. By 4pm her grandmother and two aunts were getting worried. The Independent newspaper, December 14th 1994, states that at 4.10pm Nayan’s 28 year old uncle Aleem arrived at the house. When he heard that his niece had not come home from school he burst into tears. He immediately got on the telephone and called the school, only to be told that they hadn't seen Nayantara all day. As an aside, it is shocking to think that until relatively recently in many schools there was no system in place to check up on absent pupils. I have covered a couple of cases where if there had been tighter procedures outcomes may have been different, or at the very least investigations would have started much earlier and on a surer footing.

Uncle Aleem called the police straight away and reported his niece missing. The call handler informed him that some officers would be over presently to take down some details. Over an hour passed and no one had arrived. At 6pm Aleem called the police for a second time. An hour and a half later at 7.30pm two uniformed officers knocked on the front door of the house on Pevensey Road.

In Aleem’s opinion the officers had made up their mind prematurely that this incident was nothing more than a cultural issue. Nayantara had more than likely run away to escape her strict Asian family. In an interview given by Aleem in the Independent newspaper in December 1994, he described some of the questions that were put to him and other members of the family. The police officers asked if Nayantara had been forced to wear Asian dress and if the family had any plans to send her back to Pakistan against her wishes. They also asked if an arranged marriage had been organised. Aleem denied any of these things were true and said his niece had been abducted. He felt the officers did not take him seriously. 

Over that weekend (it was Guy Fawkes Night on the Saturday) Nayan’s family went out themselves and searched the local area. They looked in parks and bushes, shopping centres and even made inquiries at a local travelling circus. None of these actions turned up any clues. By the end of the two days uncle Aleem was exhausted and tearful. According to the aforementioned article in the Independent he kept having visions that Nayan had been sexually assaulted and her body dumped somewhere.

Four days after Nayantara went missing her mother, Yasmin flew over from Pakistan and a press conference was hastily organised. On November 9th Nayantara’s mother publicly appealed for information to help find her daughter. I believe Aleem was also present but most of the talking came from Nayantara’s mother, though in truth she spoke very little English. Few journalists attended the event and it hardly featured in the print media. Coverage on radio and TV was practically nonexistent.

A missing persons poster was drawn up, though I’m unclear how far and wide this was circulated.  Nayantara 11 years old is described as 4 ft 8, 142 cm, plump with long dark hair and with a slight scar on her lower lip. She was last seen wearing her school uniform which consisted of a black, red and yellow tie, black jumper and black trousers. She was carrying a duffel bag with the name of the pop band “Take That” written on it in white lettering. Roadblocks were established around the local area and motorists were quizzed about the missing girl.

During the next few weeks the family were frustrated by what they viewed as less than optimal effort by the police in their attempts to find Nayantara. I will come back to this issue shortly and address the debate surrounding it. Though I will say here that behind the scenes the Leytonstone police who were leading the operation were not treating the case as a missing person investigation but as a murder inquiry. Tragically their presumption was soon proved to be correct.

Modern day reporting suggests the following event occurred on Tuesday November 29th but I believe it took place at 4pm on Monday the 28th. It so happened that a workman was clearing rubbish from a disused Stonemasons yard on Winchelsea Road. This was a mere 18 m from the front door of the terraced house Nayantara shared with her grandmother, sister and aunts. The yard was underneath some railway arches and lay alongside a railway viaduct. The location was a common place for fly tipping. People took advantage of the quiet spot to dump items of household rubbish and bulk items of commercial waste. Only a matter of days before an annoyed local resident had taken pictures of the mess that had accumulated under the arches there in order to issue a complaint to the local authority. Underneath a pile of timber, bricks and black rubbish bags the workman uncovered a piece of rolled up carpet. Inside the patterned carpet and wrapped in a bed sheet was the decomposing naked body of a young girl.

At first police wouldn't confirm the identity of the body but when Nayantara’s mother heard the news of the gruesome find, a literal “stones throw” from the house, she ran out into the street screaming. She yelled for Nayantara, shouting “where are you?” before collapsing in a heap. After getting to her feet, she stumbled forward a few paces before sinking to the ground, broken and forlorn. Speaking to the media, Uncle Aleem said Nayantara's parents were heartbroken. He wanted the killer caught before another child ended up a victim.

A day later Detective Superintendent (DS) Doug Harvey from North East London’s Major Investigation Pool, said the condition of the girl's body 11.04 prevented a positive ID but he believed it was Nayantara. Nayantara’s Uncle Aleem had made an informal identification shortly after the body was found. A formal identification was eventually made on December 2nd. DS Harvey told the media that Nayantra had been beaten around the head and there was evidence of sexual assault. Later police said they could not confirm 100% that there was evidence of a sex crime but stated there were indications that a sexual assault had taken place.

A postmortem examination determined that Nayantara had numerous head injuries but it was not clear if these had been the cause of death. The injuries were not caused by an object like a metal bar but indicated diffused blows. The scattered bruises may have been caused by a person’s fists. At a press conference DS Harvey was specifically asked if Nayantara had been punched to death. He replied saying he was not saying that; only that her wounds were not caused by a metal bar.

As I mentioned, Nayantara was found naked and stripped of her clothing. Her school uniform and duffel bag containing her PE kit was nowhere to be seen. These items have never been recovered. Police were unable to say if she had been killed at the disused yard where she was found or killed elsewhere and her body taken there. 

It was an incredibly dark couple of months for the UK, with four child murders or disappearances in the space of just eight weeks. Within hours of Nayantara’s body being found, another child murder investigation was initiated 90 miles,144 km, away in Perterbourgh, Cambridgeshire. In circumstances that mirrored Nayantara, on the morning of Monday November 28th, 6 year old Rikki Neave failed to turn up to school, only for it to go largely unnoticed. That morning, the last time his mum, Ruth, had seen him, Rikki had told her that he hated school. The little boy was seen later that evening playing with some older children close to some shops. During the night police officers searching scrubland near the A15 just 450m from Rikki’s home discovered his naked body. Rikki had been sexually assaulted and strangled. A ligature was left tied around his neck. 

Rikki's mother was tried and acquitted of his murder in 1996, though she pleaded guilty to separate child cruelty offences. The murder remained unsolved for decades. In 2023 James Watson, who was just 13 at the time of the murder, was convicted of the crime. DNA evidence led investigators to Watson who was briefly questioned back in 1994. 

Despite the bodies being found within 24 hours of each other it was evident there was no connection between the murders of Nayantara and Rikki. Still, there was a local, recent missing child case that did get police looking for potential links to Nayantara’s murder. 

On Sunday October 2nd 1994 9 year old Daniel Handley was out playing on his bicycle in Beckton, East London, when he vanished without a trace. This area is a little over 5 miles, 8 km south of Forest Gate. The proximity of both cases certainly raised concern and detectives investigating Nayantara’s case met with the team looking into Daniels disappearance. While it was alarming that these two incidents had happened so close together, no evidence of a connection could be found. In April 1995 the remains of Daniel Handley were found over 150 miles/240 km away from London in Bradley Stoke near Bristol. Any connection was definitively ruled out when two serial child sex offenders who targeted young boys, Timothy Morss and Brett Tyler were arrested and eventually sentenced for the crime in 1996.

On December 2nd 1994 DS Doug Harvey appeared on BBCs Crimewatch to highlight Nyantara’s case and make an appeal for the public to come forward with information. He highlighted some of the physical evidence in the case, in particular the bed sheet and carpet that was used to conceal Nayntara’s body. The bed sheet was a fitted sheet from a single bed and was pea green in colour. Rather unusually, the sheet had a valance attached to it which would cover the side of the bed. 

The carpet had been cut into a circle with a diameter of 2m 28 cm. It had been cut into this shape rather roughly by hand. It didn't look like this had been done professionally. The carpet had a tufted weave and was pink in colour (some reports say a reddy pink). The reverse side was backed with hessian rather than rubber. The carpet looked like it might come from a bedroom rather than a living room or hallway. It may have been used as a rug, in what would have been quite a large room. It was not well worn but relatively fresh looking.

DS Harvey asked if anyone living in the local area recognised seeing a pea green bed sheet on a neighbour’s washing line or perhaps in a laundrette. Did anyone remember seeing a person or persons carrying a carpet near Pevensey Road in Forest Gate? The perpetrator may very well have taken the body to the yard on foot rather than using a car, possibly under the cover of darkness. It was seemingly evident that whoever had placed the body under the railway arch had very good knowledge of the area. It was more than likely that Nayantara had never left the vicinity. It would make little sense for a killer to abduct Nayantara and take her out of the area only to return to hide the body. The uncomfortable truth was that the killer must be living close by. 

Indeed, family and friends consistently told police that Naynatara was a mature and confident young girl. From this investigators concluded it was unlikely that Nyanatara would have been duped into going off with a stranger. 

One hundred calls came in following the Crimewatch feature. Many people shared information concerning the carpet. Police spoke of being overwhelmed with the response. It was a promising start and new leads were said to be being followed up as a result. 

About a fortnight after Nayantara’s body was found, another 11 year old girl was reported missing from nearby Catford in south east London. This is just 10 miles/17 km from Forest Gate. The young girl named Krystal had disappeared while on an errand for her grandmother to collect a prescription from a local chemist. Krystal was last seen at 2pm on  December 4th in a park in Fulham, South London. She went missing exactly one month after Nayantara and Nayantara’s murder was referenced in the media reporting of this incident. Thankfully in Krystal’s case there was a happy ending. She was found safe and well in a public library. Apparently the whole thing had been a misunderstanding and the 11 year old had made arrangements to stay at a friend's house without first checking with her parents.

In Nayantara’s case the questions concerning why, how and when she was murdered were only just beginning. When Nayantara’s body was proven to have been hidden so close to her home, the family were perplexed. Why had it taken so long for her to be found? A confused, unnamed cousin of Nayantara told the Evening Standard on November 29th 1994 that the disused yard had been searched twice by police. Why had the officers not inspected the carpet? This caused the police to speculate whether the body had been there for the entire three weeks Nayantara had been missing or whether it had been moved there recently. Extensive inquiries were said to have been made amongst local residents to determine this fact but to no avail. It seems no one had seen anything untoward or suspicious. 

As I mentioned, members of the extended family were critical of the police response to Nyanatara’s disappearance and this indignation grew when she was found to have been murdered. Uncle Aleem told the Independent newspaper (December 14th 1994) of his grievances with the investigation. He claimed the inquiry van that was set up in Forest Gate was removed only seven days after Nayantara had gone missing. He complained that numerous times he tried to phone the incident room late at night but never got a response and was not given the opportunity to leave a message. Eventually the family said during the period Nayantara was missing they had given up asking the police questions and became resigned to the fact that she was dead.

In response to the family's criticism the police said they understood why the family were upset but insisted the matter had been treated seriously since November 4th when Nayantara was first reported missing. DS Douglas Harvey was satisfied that the police had done all they could to find Nayantara. Any complaints from the family were unfounded. DS Harvey said the case was a murder inquiry from the day he took charge of the investigation. He claimed he had not  spoken openly about this with the family as he didnt want to upset them. During the initial stages of the investigation  numerous lines of inquiry were pursued by detectives. Acres of land were searched and 300 people were interviewed in the first three weeks of the missing person investigation.The same resources were allocated to Nayantara's investigation as would be any similar case. Fifty temporary staff had been designated to it plus twelve CID officers. In an ideal world Harvey would have liked it to be more but due to staff shortages this was all that was manageable under the circumstances.

In the same article from the Independent newspaper  Chaudhy Anwar, the director of Race Equality Council Walthamstow, said the issue was that the Asian community wanted the police to be more proactive in their working practices; they also had incredibly high standards for what the police could achieve in situations like this. There was, however, a definite feeling amongst some in the local Asian community that the police had neglected to do their duty and Nayantara’s case had been treated differently because she was Asian and not white. 

An article in the Daily Jang, a Pakistani newspaper for British Asians questioned the police response and gained some notice. A meeting was held in December 1994 in Walthamstow hosted by the Race Equality Council which saw sixty people gather to discuss the police management of the case.

Comparisons were made between the police handling of Nayantara's disappearance and the case of another missing girl from the north of England. I said earlier that there had been four child murders and disappearances in the space of just two months. You may have noticed I only mentioned three cases. This is the fourth.

13 year old Lindsay Jo Rimer vanished just a few days after Nayantara on November 7th in Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire. She was last seen a little after 10.20pm after going out to buy a box of cornflakes from a local corner shop. From the aforementioned article in the Independent Nayantara's uncle Aleem certainly seemed to feel that the girls had not been treated equally. He claimed in Lindsay’s case the police had arrived at the family house just 10 minutes after she was reported missing. In addition, within 24 hours an incident room had been established, fifty officers had been deployed to conduct door to door enquiries and police divers had searched local waterways. As an aside I will not say too much about Lindsay’s case here, as I plan on covering it on the podcast soon. It was while researching that case that I happened upon Nayantara’s story. 

DS Douglas Harvey refuted any claims that racism had played a part in the case, as did another detective, Frank Weatherly, who was also working on the investigation. Harvey said the family were critical of the police because they were angry and also ignorant of police procedure. Once the police had finished searching he claimed there wasn't much else they could do. 

Believe it or not, since December 1994 there has been next to nothing reported on this case in the media. Nayantara’s murder was briefly mentioned by the BBC back in May 1999 during a feature on what were then brand new developments concerning DNA fingerprinting . It was hoped Nayantara’s might be one of the cases that would benefit from this new forensic technology.

Over the last four years there have been at least two freedom of information requests asking if there is DNA evidence available in this case. Both requests were denied. In September 2024, Nayantara's story was summarised by the Sun newspaper but other than that her case has been largely forgotten about. In the last three decades there have been no appeals by police for information and no suspects have ever been named. As far as I'm aware no arrests have ever happened. 

Interestingly Uncle Aleem is quoted in the Independent December 1994 as saying that it looked like Nyantara had been kept alive for four days after her abduction and that he rued the lost opportunity of finding her alive. I do not know what evidence this claim is based on as I can't find any record of the police mentioning this detail themselves. If true, this would strengthen the idea that Nayantara had been taken and killed in a house close to where she lived. 

An article in the Western Daily press from November 30th 1994 does see DS Harvey confirm that the area where the body was found including under the railways arches was searched by the territorial support group (The Territorial Support group is part of the Met police force and specialises in public order policing.) It does seem hard to believe that they would have missed the body which suggests the body was moved there later, perhaps not long before it was discovered. That begs the question: where was the body kept before this?

I’m afraid that is all I have to share about this sad case. Nayantara lost her life in the most violent and sickening way and no one has ever been brought to justice for it. Even after all these years there may be someone who recognises the peculiar pea green bed sheet or circle of pink carpet. Or perhaps someone who saw a person or persons carrying a rolled up piece of pink carpet around the streets of Forest Gate at that time. 

If you have any information about the unsolved murder of Nayantara Ali you can contact Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111

Sources

https://tinyurl.com/2xeh4ury