A month after a 16-year-old girl was killed in north-west Delhi’s Shahbad Dairy, the police on Wednesday said a chargesheet has been filed against the accused Sahil for various offences, including sexual harassment and murder.
The victim’s father demanded death penalty for the accused, adding that he would perform his daughter’s final rites only after she gets justice.
On the evening of May 28, Sahil, 23, allegedly killed the victim in full public glare by stabbing her over 20 times and bludgeoning her with a stone.
The police arrested him from Uttar Pradesh’s Bulandshahr the next day, even as CCTV footage of the incident went viral.
On Tuesday, Delhi Police filed before a Rohini court the 640-page chargesheet under Sections 302 (murder), 354A (punishment for sexual harassment) and 509 (word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman) of the Indian Penal Code.
It also charged the accused under Section 12 (punishment for committing sexual harassment upon a child) of the Prevention of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, Section 3(2)(v) of the SC/ST Act as well as Sections 25 and 27 of the Arms Act.
The special POCSO court will next hear the case on July 1.
‘Rejected his advances’
According to a senior officer, Sahil told the police that he had threatened her multiple times for spurning his advances.
“A day before the murder, the victim and one of her male friends had warned Sahil to stay away from her. This infuriated him and he decided to murder her using a button knife he had bought 15 days earlier from Haridwar,” he said.
The police, based on Sahil’s questioning, recovered the knife from a park near Rithala metro station, and the clothes and shoes he wore on that day from Bulandshahr, he added.
As per the chargesheet, “14 biological exhibits, one chemical exhibit, four physical exhibit and one cyber exhibit” were examined at the Forensic Science Laboratory, Rohini.
These include traces of blood on the stone, the knife and Sahil’s clothes, along with various voice notes he allegedly sent via phone to harass and threaten her.
Quoting the chargesheet, the officer said among the 51 witnesses are the victim’s parents and friends, three of whom are listed as prime witnesses.
Another officer said a friend of Sahil’s mother is also a witness, explaining that after the murder, Sahil had gone to the friend’s house nearby and told the woman to keep his mobile phone.
“CCTV footage of the spot of the crime showed Sahil waiting for the victim, attacking her and fleeing the spot. We also corroborated the sequence of events and mapped all locations he travelled to before and after the incident with call detail records,” he said.
Speaking to The Hindu, the victim’s father said he was satisfied with the police investigation but wanted death penalty for the accused.
“We will perform the rituals once the boy is given death penalty. He killed my daughter so brutally that it still shakes my family,” he said, adding that his 12-year-old son is still traumatised from his sister’s death. The father, a mason by profession, went on to add, “After my daughter told me that [the accused] was troubling her, I asked her to avoid meeting him, but Sahil continued troubling her.”
