Sixty-one-year-old Mohammed Nazir lived in a house on Hull Close in Slough, Berkshire, England with his nineteen-year-old son. On July 28th, 1997, two masked gunmen forced their way into the home and threatened the Nazirs, at which point Mohammed threw himself in front of his son to protect him. The gunmen shot both Mohammed and his son in the legs and then fled the scene.
The injured Mohammed gave chase to the attackers, but they turned and shot at him again, hitting him in the abdomen before running off. They reportedly got into a white car and sped away. Mohammed died later from his wounds, though the son recovered.
Police were uncertain as to the motive behind the shooting, speculating that perhaps the son had been the target and not Mohammed, though they had to admit they didn’t know who would want to shoot the son or why. They also believed that the perpetrators had not intended to kill their victim.
The assailants both spoke with local accents, and wore balaclavas and gloves; one of them carried a length of wood in addition to a firearm. Despite the masks, the son stated that he thought one of the men was white and the other Asian.
Authorities followed several avenues in order to pinpoint the reason for the crime, investigating the possibility that the shooting had been related to drugs, family rivalry, local tensions between Muslims and Sikhs, or perhaps even mistaken identity. None of the leads panned out, and the seemingly random murder of Mohammed Nazir is still unsolved, more than a quarter century later.
Crime Immemorial 