A three-year-old girl pretended to sleep and escaped murder while her mother and two siblings were killed at their home in west Delhi’s Raghubir Nagar.
The girl told The Hindu that she had seen three persons enter home and carry out the murders. Referring to them as “chacha”, she indicated that they lived nearby and have visited their house in the past. The girl used her fingers to indicate that there were three assailants.
Police are questioning some neighbours and residents of the five-storey building in which the victims lived. The prime suspect is a neighbour who is learnt to have made unwanted advances in the past towards the 28-year-old woman Shabnam.
The statement of the girl, possibly the lone eyewitness, has been recorded by the police. “I closed my eyes when they came,” she said when asked how she survived. “But I saw them,” she added and nodded when asked if she could identify the assailants. Police said, “They possibly targeted only the woman and her two oldest children as they were afraid of being identified later. They must have believed that the youngest three would not be able to identify them,” said Pushpendra Kumar, DCP (West).
Prima facie, the assailants seem to have also involved someone living inside the building as there were no signs of forced entry into the building that houses around 30 residents. Entry into the victim’s room was not forced either.
The victim’s family hails from Kasganj in Uttar Pradesh and were tenants on the second floor of the building since two years.
“They were going to move to Vishnu Garden soon,” said Reyaz Hussain, Shabnam’s father, who lived in the next building but moved to Vishnu Garden 10 days back. Police sources said the unwanted advances by a neighbour had forced Shabnam and her family to plan a shift.
A murder case has been registered at Khyala police station. However, alleging inaction by the police, dozens of locals pelted stones at police vehicles, leaving at least 10 policemen injured. They also set two motorcycles ablaze. Meanwhile, the victims’ bodies were handed over to relatives after post-mortem.
