Crime / Parents kill 25-yr-old daughter in Delhi, drive her body 80km to UP to dump it

NEW DELHI: Angry over her “secret marriage” with a man of the same gotra, the family of a 25-year-old woman from east Delhi allegedly murdered her, drove to Aligarh in Uttar Pradesh and dumped her body in a canal. The woman, Sheetal Chaudhary, and her boyfriend, Ankit Bhati, belonged to the same community.

The murder took place on January 29, but the family managed to keep it under wraps. Bhati lodged an abduction complaint on February 18 after he failed to contact Sheetal.

Three days later, cops from New Ashok Nagar police station arrested six members of the woman’s family, including her parents Ravinder Chaudhary and Suman, uncle Sanjay, and relatives Om Prakash, Parvesh and Ankit. DCP (East) Jasmeet Singh confirmed the arrests on Friday evening.

The remains of Sheetal’s body and her belongings were found by UP Police in the canal on January 30. However, they cremated the body due to lack of identification.

The family members have been booked for murder, destruction of evidence and hatching a criminal conspiracy. They were produced before a court and sent to Tihar Jail in judicial custody for 14 days.

During interrogation, the family members reportedly told police that they strangled Sheetal on the night of January 29 and then drove with her body in a seated position in their WagonR. The relatives followed the parents in another car and dumped the body in a canal near Jawan in Aligarh, which is 80-100 kilometres from Delhi. The family returned to Delhi the same night.

During the probe, police scanned the call details of the family members and found them calling each other while going towards UP. They were questioned individually through Wednesday night during which they gave conflicting statements. They broke down during cross-examination and confessed to murdering Sheetal. They took police to the spot where they had dumped the body, but could not find it.

Delhi Police contacted their counterparts in Aligarh, who scanned through their records and found that a woman’s body had been found in the canal on January 30. The body was kept in the local mortuary for identification till February 2. When nobody turned up to claim the body, UP Police preserved her belongings, got an autopsy done and performed the last rites as per protocol. Bhati identified Sheetal’s body from her clothes and photos and confirmed her death.