'Humiliated teenager killed Joshi for revenge'
It was with the help of social networking site Facebook that the police solved the murder of a 68-year-old Sanskrit teacher in Vasant Kunj on Tuesday.
It was with the help of social networking site Facebook that the police solved the murder of a 68-year-old Sanskrit teacher in Vasant Kunj on Tuesday.
The police arrested a 17-year-old IIT aspirant for the alleged murder. He was one of the victim's tenants. The police had information that the victim, DK Joshi, had rented one of the rooms in his duplex house to two students in November 2009.
"After the death of his wife, Joshi felt a great emotional void and became introvert, spiritual and follower of Osho Ashram in Murthal. But he found hard to pass time and last November, he kept two students as paying guests," said HGS Dhaliwal, DCP (south).
"He started treating them as his own children and used to help them in their studies. He even got his cable connection cut so that their studies were not disturbed," said the officer.
Joshi threw out the students in March when he found some wine bottles, sent by his son from the US, missing. Later, Joshi discovered his credit cards and his deceased wife's jewellery were missing.
Joshi was not registered with the senior citizen's cell but the beat constable used to meet him regularly.
Joshi informed the teenager's father, who lives in Singrauli in Madhya Pradesh, and asked him to foot the bill of R3 lakh.
According to the DCP, Joshi did not press criminal charges, but demanded R50,000 extra from the teenager's father.
"He felt humiliated and wanted to get rid of Joshi," said Dhaliwal. "Joshi lived alone and there was no one who could provide us the details of the two boys living with him. We only knew their names and searched Facebook for more details. We found the teenager's contact number on the site, which helped us apprehend him from his uncle's house through technical surveillance."
The police said the boy returned to Delhi on December 16, allegedly with an intent to kill Joshi.
On the day of the murder, Joshi found the boy outside his flat. The teenager pushed Joshi inside the house and allegedly attacked Joshi with a dagger that he had brought along.
"When the dagger got damaged, he stabbed Joshi with scissors. On his way out, the boy picked up a laptop, three wine bottles and a mobile phone in a bag," Dhaliwal said.