Shahbad dairy murder sahil bought knife from haridwar 15 days earlier

Shahbad dairy murder sahil bought knife from haridwar 15 days earlier

Accused made death threats to the victim two days before killing her, say police; search to find murder weapon under way; daughter spoke to me about Sahil, I asked her to concentrate on studies but she wouldn’t listen, victim’s father tells police.

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.

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.

“Sahil said he planned the attack with seven to eight friends, one of whom could be seen in the second video [which surfaced on Tuesday]. His friends asked him not to go ahead with the plan and subsequently fled from the spot,” the officer also said.

According to the police, Sahil dumped the knife near the Rithala metro station before fleeing to Bulandshahr in Uttar Pradesh, from where he was caught on Monday. Search is under way to find the murder weapon, said a police officer. Explaining the sequence of events, another officer said after Sahil committed the murder at 9 p.m. on Sunday, after which he left for Badli, reached Anand Vihar ISBT and took a bus to Bulandshahr.

In his statement to the police, the victim’s father said he was aware that the deceased had known Sahil for the past year.

“She did mention one Sahil, who lived in Jain Colony, who was friends with her. I tried explaining to her that she is young and should concentrate on her studies. But whenever I spoke to her about it, she would get angry and move to a friend’s house. She had been staying at her friend’s place for the past 10 days,” the victim’s father said in the FIR.