TORONTO, Nov 19: She was doing her project, printing charts and graphics and getting ready to go to York University. Suddenly the phone started ringing. Someone wanted her to open the door of her apartment in a high-rise building in Mississauga, nearly 25 kilometres west of Toronto.

The uninvited guest was no stranger to Miss Nuzhat Amiji or her younger brother Naeem, also a York University student, who too was busy in his homework in an adjacent room. The man who came in was in fact one of their relatives.

First he cut off the telephone line, quickly locked Nuzhat’s room from inside and attacked her with a knife. As Naeem heard the screams of his sister, he tried to break open the door, but failed.

After having brutally killed Nuzhat, Mehaboobbhoy Adamjee, 34, attacked Naeem who rushed back to his room to pick up a golf tee to defend himself, by the time sustaining serious knife wounds.

With blood oozing out from knife wounds in all parts of his body, Naeem ran for his life crying for help and went down from the 24th floor to another floor via the staircase before he collapsed. The dying Naeem wrote the name of the killer with his blood on the carpet.

According to police, the 20-year-old Naeem was found dead with 18 stab wounds on the 22nd floor stairwell of the Webb Drive condominium at about 8:30 am.

A bloody trail led police investigators to the 24th floor unit of the building, near Hurontario Street where Nuzhat’s body was discovered. According to the autopsy report and police version of events, Adamjee had stabbed Nuzhat 56 times before covering her head with a knapsack.

As the trial began, Adamjee pleaded guilty. With defence lawyer Marshall Sack standing by his side, Adamjee, 34, admitted to Mr Justice Jack Belleghem that he killed Nuzhat, 23, and her brother by stabbing them to death.

An agreed statement of facts was read out by Adamjee in the court last week and Crown prosecutor John Patton described it as a “brutal, callous and heinous” murder. The relatives and friends were sitting grim in the courtroom when the details of the crime were provided to the judge. The victims’ parents, who came from Saudi Arabia to attend court hearings, were in tears when they came to know how ruthlessly their son and daughter were killed.

The court was told that Adamjee was living in Canada illegally and was twice denied refugee claimant status. He wanted to marry Nuzhat to help solve his immigration problem and overcome financial difficulties. Nuzhat and Naeem belonged to a well-to-do family, which migrated from India to Saudi Arabia. Nuzhat and Naeem came to Canada a few years ago for higher studies.

Being an educated girl, Nuzhat’s rejection of the marriage proposal was obvious and that annoyed Adamjee.

The court on Tuesday morning convicted Adamjee to serve life sentence with no chance of parole for 15 years.