Kitten’s disappearance leads to pair of Ohio State students facing criminal charges

Bailey Johnston
Tue, 05 Nov 2024 05:28:53 +0000
Campus, Crime, Instagram Page, News, altercation, animal cruelty, animals, arrest, brittany williams, camera footage, campus, campus desk, Capital Area Humane Society, cat, charges, columbus humane, Columbus Police Department, cpd, crime, hounddog's pizza, investigation, kitten, Luqman Tengku, Mindy, missing kitten, missing pet, Muhammad Aziz, ohio state, ohio state university, osu, pets, plastic bag [and 6 more]

Mindy sits in a cat carrier watching outside a window while Mohd Zaini and Luqman share some bubble tea. Mindy went missing Sept. 27 and was found Oct. 21. Credit: Courtesy of Luqman Tengku

Porch camera footage captured an Ohio State student placing his roommate’s kitten into a plastic bag before leaving his home. The student is now facing five criminal charges, and his roommate is facing two, including assault with a hammer.?

On Sept. 27, a neighbor’s porch camera recorded who police suspect is Muhammad Aziz putting his roommate Luqman Tengku’s kitten, Mindy, into a bag before leaving their home, according to a police report. Aziz, a fourth-year in civil engineering, returned over 30 minutes later without the bag, leading to a confrontation that escalated into a physical altercation in which police say Tengku assaulted Aziz with a hammer. Tengku — a fourth-year in electrical engineering — now faces assault and aggravated menacing charges.

Mindy went missing for nearly a month before being found Oct. 21 in Dublin, which is almost 11 miles away from the home. The Columbus Division of Police and Capital Area Humane Society — an organization known as Columbus Humane,?the law enforcement agency tasked with investigating animal cruelty cases in Franklin County, according to its website? — have since investigated her disappearance.?

Charges against Aziz have been filed in the Franklin County Municipal Court as a result, including abandoning animals, petty theft, criminal damage/endangerment and two counts of criminal mischief. Aziz will have two separate court hearings for the charges filed by Columbus Humane and CPD, respectively.

“I had just lost hope in finding [Mindy] after almost a month,” Tengku said in a text message. “I didn’t think I would ever get her back, so reuniting with Mindy feels like a huge burden has been lifted from my shoulders.”

The Lantern repeatedly reached out to Aziz for comment regarding Mindy’s disappearance and other details about the incident but did not receive a response by the time of publication.

Context and timeline

Tengku said he adopted 2-month-old Mindy in May as a birthday present for his girlfriend, Anis Mohd Zaini, a fourth-year in chemical engineering. Since then, the kitten has lived with Tengku in the University District and has become an essential part of the couple’s lives, Tengku said.

“[Mindy] loved playing in my basement, so that’s why we decided to let her in my house,” Tengku said. “She’s like, just like a family to me, and Mindy’s like a daughter to my girlfriend.”

As Mindy settled into her new home, Tengku said he noticed tension rising between the cat and Aziz. He said on several occasions, Aziz intentionally released Mindy outside and claimed she escaped on her own.

“[Aziz] let my cat out every night, and then I need to look for her under the porch, look for her around the house,” Tengku said. “But when I asked him, he said, ‘Oh, Mindy went out from the basement.’ That wasn’t possible because there is no hole. There was no hole in the basement.”

Tengku said he first noticed Mindy was missing Sept. 27 around 11:30 p.m., when he failed to find her after watching a movie with Mohd Zaini. The couple and Aziz were the only people in the home at the time, and Tengku said he heard the front door open and close around 10:40 p.m.

“My girlfriend and I were playing with Mindy, and then after that, we decided to watch a movie,” Tengku said. “There was only [Aziz] at that time, and then after that, I heard somebody open the door and leave the house. Then, I checked for Mindy. I went downstairs to look for her, then I realized she was gone.”

Tengku said he used a GPS tracker in Mindy’s collar to find her location, and it placed her near Hounddog’s Pizza — located at 2657 N. High St. — which is about a half mile away from his house. He alleges Aziz was the one who took her to this location.

“I showed the location to my girlfriend, and she was terrified and surprised,” Tengku said. “We were thinking maybe someone kidnapped her or something. But I knew she was at home, and [Aziz] was out at 10:40 [p.m.], so I knew it was him.”

Tengku said he immediately went to Mindy’s location in hopes of finding her but instead found her collar in a nearby trash can. He said her collar appeared to have been cleanly cut off before being thrown away.

With growing concern for Mindy’s safety, Tengku said he returned home to confront Aziz about the suspicion of his involvement. This confrontation led to a physical altercation between the two, which involved Tengku being armed with a hammer. Aziz sustained an injury and called CPD.

“I was arrested that night for assault because [Aziz] was telling them that I was attacking him without any reason,” Tengku said.

According to a police report filed by CPD, Tengku was arrested around midnight Oct. 28 for assault. The report states Tengku was armed with a blunt object, which was specified as a hammer, and that he struck Aziz during the altercation. Tengku left the scene after striking Aziz and was later located by the reporting officer almost a mile away from where the incident occurred.

In response to this report, Tengku said he held the hammer in self-defense during this altercation, as the discovery of Mindy’s collar made him believe Aziz was armed with a sharp object. He said he then left the scene to look for Mindy before calling CPD to notify them of his location.

“I was acting in self-defense,” Tengku said. “I told [CPD] that I was afraid because I believed that [Aziz] had just killed my cat, Mindy, and that he had something sharp with him. After he called the police, I decided to leave and try to find any evidence of Mindy around the area. At some point, I called one of my housemates, who informed me that [Aziz] had made false accusations against me and that the police were looking for me, so I called the police myself to tell them where I was.”

According to court documents from the Franklin County Municipal Court, Tengku was charged with assault Sept. 28 for knowingly causing, or attempting to cause, physical harm, as well as with aggravated menacing for being armed with a hammer. Tengku has since had two court hearings regarding these charges and has a jury trial scheduled for Nov. 19.?

Tengku said he spent three days at the Franklin County Jail, where he worried about Mindy’s well-being.

Mohd Zaini declined to comment on the situation due to the emotional stress caused by the incident, she said.

After his release Sept. 30, Tengku said he obtained footage from a neighbor’s porch camera from the night of Sept. 27 in hopes of discovering the events of Mindy’s disappearance.?

The footage shows a person, who CPD has officially identified as Aziz in the police repor t, picking up a cat at 10:44 p.m. and placing it into a plastic bag before walking away from the house with the bag in his hand. He returns at 11:18 p.m. on an electric scooter and is no longer carrying the bag.

“When I found out that that’s really [Aziz], I was kind of like, ‘What? How can he do this to me? How can [he] do something to my cat?’” Tengku said.

Tengku said he contacted CPD Oct. 1 about the footage, and according to a police report filed by the department, Columbus Humane investigated Aziz’s involvement in Mindy’s disappearance.?

Charges

According to court documents from the Franklin County Municipal Court, Columbus Humane’s investigation concluded Oct. 30, and the agency filed an abandoning animals charge against Aziz, who will have his first court hearing for this charge Nov. 20.?

Brittany Williams, director of marketing at Columbus Humane, said the organization contacted the residential community — as well as Aziz — during this investigation to determine what happened to Mindy the night of Sept. 27 between 10:44 p.m. and 11:18 p.m.

“So, for this case, specifically, we went across the neighbors to talk to them — to see if they saw anything new or talked to the cat owner, talked to [Aziz],” Williams said. “We were able to make contact with [Aziz], who took the cat. We went to talk to the pizza place where the collar was found in the trash can to see if they had any CCTV or anything like that.”

Williams said in addition to the Columbus Humane investigation, CPD could potentially file property theft charges against Aziz for his actions caught in the porch camera footage.

“We told [Tengku] to file a charge with [CPD] for property damage because in the state of Ohio, animals are considered property to a person,” Williams said.?

After an investigation into the case, CPD officially filed petty theft, criminal damage/endangerment and two criminal mischief charges against Aziz, according to Franklin County Municipal Court Clerk Case Information. Aziz will have his first court hearing Dec. 3.

The Lantern could not reach Aziz for comment regarding his charges by the time of publication.