Migrant labourer Mohammad Afrazul, who was brutally murdered by Shambhulal Regar in Rajsamand district of Rajasthan on December 6, was not Regar’s intended target, the police said on Monday.

“He [Regar] wanted to kill one Ajju Sheikh because he was in contact with a girl whom Shambhu regarded as his sister,” Rajendra Singh Rao, police circle officer of Rajsamand, told Hindustan Times. “But we suspect Shambhu had an affair with her.”

Regar reportedly went to the market at Jhalchakki to enquire about Sheikh, the police said. But he could not find him and asked a labourer for his mobile number. The labourer gave Afrazul’s number to Regar by mistake as he might have misheard him or thought that he needed to get some work done, the police said.

Regar called Afrazul on December 5, the police said. He asked Afrazul to meet him but the day the labourer was reportedly in the town of Nathdwara. “On December 6, he called Afrazul at 9 am again and asked him to come as he wanted a boundary wall of a plot constructed,” Rao said. At around 10.30 am, he had tea with Afrazul, and moments later hacked him to death.