Taxi driver's murder leaves questions

The Mohini family/ Photo / Supplied

The widow of slain Auckland taxi driver Hiren Mohini wants to confront her husband's murderer, now in custody and awaiting trail in Shanghai, and ask him "why? ".

Falguni Mohini was widowedafter her husband died in a frenzied knife attack, allegedly by a 23-year-old man, Zhen Xiao, in Mt Eden in the early hours of January 31.

Now she wants to ask her husband's killer: "Why did you kill Hiren? My children really miss their father, they miss their dad everyday. Our lives will never be the same."

Daughters Yashvi and Hetvi were left fatherless after Xiao repeatedly stabbed Hiren Mohini, 39. Hiren managed to activate his panic button before crashing his taxi into a brick wall in Mt Eden's View Rd.

Residents who heard the crash tried in vain to save Mohini, bleeding from multiple stab wounds to his neck and chest, but he died before he could be taken to hospital. A convoy of more than 100 vehicles, dozens of them taxis, accompanied his funeral cortege from the Mohini home in Mt Roskill to Waikumete cemetery as hundreds of colleagues, friends, family and neighbours turned out to pay their respects.

An extensive man-hunt was launched after witnesses saw a man running down View Rd and later on the roof of a carport, stripped to the waist. After viewing more than 400 hours of CCTV footage, police compiled a 90-second track which shows Xiao walking through the city and getting into Mohini's taxi. The footage featured on Police Ten 7.

Xiao fled to China a week after the attack but Chinese authorities arrested him in Shanghai in June. Xiao will stand trial in China but authorities have assured Auckland police that the accused will not face the death sentence if he is convicted of Mohini's murder.

Next month the family will visit View Rd where Mohini died on the first anniversary of his death.

While Falguni is pleased Xiao has been caught, she says his arrest

will not bring back her daughters' father.

"They are finding it very hard. We are sad, it will be the first one [Christmas] without their father."