16-year-old girl hacked to death with an axe,in Delhi, stalker arrested

A day after a 16-year-old girl was attacked and killed by a man wielding an axe near her home in south Delhi's Moti Bagh, police on Tuesday said they have arrested her attacker, who was allegedly stalking her for the past several months.

The 21-year-old suspect was identified by his single name, Pradeep alias Praveen. Police said he was harassing the girl for a relationship but she turned him down. Around two months ago, the girl's father slapped him for troubling his minor daughter, the police said.

'Pradeep was arrested from his sister's house in Palwal, Haryana. He was stalking the girl for the past several months and the girl's father had slapped him over this.  This angered Pradeep and he wanted to take revenge. He purchased an axe from RK Puram a month ago and used it to attack the girl on Monday afternoon. The axe was recovered from the scene of crime,' said deputy commissioner of police (southwest) Ingit Pratap Singh.

Police said the attack on the girl was captured by a CCTV camera installed near the spot. The footage helped them deduce the exact sequence of events leading to the attack and establish the attacker's identity. It is a key piece of evidence against Pradeep, they said.

According to the girl's younger sister, Pradeep was threatening the girl for the past the few days -- he had said he would kill her before her birthday on July 13. 'Pradeep attacked her just a day before her birthday. He was harassing my sister. He once came to our house drunk at night and quarrelled with us,' the sister said.

Police said the teenager lived with her parents and three siblings in a slum behind some government quarters in Moti Bagh. Her parents sold fruits and electrical items from a shop nearby, with her father sometimes working part-time at an embassy ( the family did



not say which one). The 16-year-old girl was a class 11 student at a government school and she helped managed the shop in her free time, police said. That was where Pradeep saw her.

Pradeep lived in a tenement nearly a kilometre away from the girl's house, but he used to visit his friend's shop, which is nearby her parents' shop, the police said.

On Monday around 1pm, the girl was walking towards her home in Moti Bagh and was about 200 metres from her home when Pradeep allegedly accosted her and attacked her with the axe, leaving her with severe head and face injuries. He fled the crime scene, but left behind the axe covered in blood, said DCP Singh.

'The injured girl was rushed to Safdarjung hospital by the time the police reached the crime scene after being alerted by a passerby. She was alive at the time of her admission, but succumbed to injuries during treatment. The case that was initially registered as attempt to murder was later converted to murder,' the officer said.

Police said that the CCTV camera footage from near the crime scene was shown to the girl's family members, who identified her attacker as Pradeep. The investigating team then examined CCTV cameras on the route that Pradeep took after the crime. A search was conducted at his house but he was missing. Through technical surveillance and information collected through their informants' network, Pradeep's location was traced to his sister's home in Palwal. A search was conducted there and he was arrested, they said.

Delhi has reported at least five cases of rape and six cases of sexual harassment every day this year till June 15, according to the latest data uploaded on the Delhi Police's website. During the corresponding period last year, the capital witnessed three rapes and four cases of sexual harassment.