The knife used to stab the 16-year-old girl to death in north-west Delhi’s Shahbad Dairy on Sunday was bought by the assailant, Sahil, 15 days earlier from Haridwar, the police said on Tuesday, suggesting that the crime was not committed on the spur of the moment but planned well in advance. The Delhi police were given Sahil’s two-day remand by a court here on Tuesday.
A new purported CCTV footage from the spot, which surfaced on social media on Tuesday, shows Sahil talking to a friend and walking around the spot, waiting for the victim, minutes before killing her. Sahil is accused of stabbing the victim more than 20 times and bludgeoning her to death with a stone in full public glare on Sunday.
A senior police officer said the accused threatened to kill the victim on Friday after she rebuffed him in the presence of her friends. “The victim admonished Sahil again when he met her on Sunday,” the officer said. The officer said the victim did not inform her parents about the threats, which Sahil made in person and on Instagram, out of fear of being scolded by them.
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Ten days before the murder, a 21-year-old student of Shiv Nadar University was shot dead on the institute’s Greater Noida campus. The third-year BA student had also received threats from her assailant and informed the university authorities about it, adding that she did not want to file a police complaint out of fear that “her parents may not fully understand the situation”.
Changing statements
“He has been changing his statements. Initially, he claimed to have committed the crime in a fit of rage as he was being ignored. Later he said he killed the victim as she was keen on getting back with a former friend,” the officer added.