Kailash Hills horror: IIT graduate raped, killed in posh South Delhi neighbourhood by former house help

The suspect, Rahul Meena, hails from Rajasthan’s Alwar, where he was wanted for sexually assaulting another woman last night, police said.

A 22-year-old woman was raped and strangled with a mobile phone charger cable at her home in south Delhi’s Kailash Hills on Wednesday morning by a 23-year-old former household employee who apparently gained entry after exploiting a narrow window when her parents had stepped out as part of their daily routine, police said.

A Police Control Room (PCR) call was received around 9 am on Wednesday reporting the incident (Representative photo)

“The suspect, Rahul Meena, was apprehended in the evening from a hotel in Dwarka,” said Vijay Kumar, joint commissioner of police, southern range. “A case has been registered on charges of rape, murder, and robbery, among other sections,” Kumar added.

Meena hails from Rajasthan’s Alwar, where he was wanted for sexually assaulting another woman last night, police said.

The victim, an IIT graduate who had been preparing for the civil services examination, was found by her parents when they returned from the gym at around 8am. Her father is a civil servant; her mother, a dentist. Her 25-year-old brother lives and works in Mumbai.

“Initial questioning suggests the motive was rape-robbery but it may also be revenge since the family sacked him,” an officer said, asking not to be named. Meena was employed by the family for roughly 10 months before being dismissed two months ago — over concerns about an addiction to online gaming and a habit of borrowing small sums from neighbours, the officer said.

The family had hired him on the reference of a colleague of the victim’s father; no police verification was carried out before he was taken on, the officer said.

The victim’s father, in his complaint to police, described how their worst fears came true after returning home. The family’s car cleaner had been on the premises that morning; when the couple returned, he told them their former domestic help had come by.

“He said when he asked him why he was here, he just rushed,” the complaint read. The parents took the lift up. Near the entrance, there was blood.

Police said CCTV footage placed Meena entering the house at 6.39am, approximately 40 minutes after the victim’s parents had left. He was seen leaving at 7.22am, exiting to the right of the building, carrying a bag and having changed his trouser and shoes, they added.

The locker in the parents’ bedroom had been forced open; the room was ransacked. Police said he fled with cash and valuables. Some portion of the ₹2-2.5 lakh he stole had been recovered upon his arrest, joint commissioner Kumar said later.

Kumar added that Meena likely entered the residence using a smart key that is kept hidden away for another domestic help to enter. “He was aware of the location of the key and used it to unlock the locked door,” he said.

Meena’s behaviour indicated that he was aware of the couple’s routine, their movements and the placement of the key, police said.

Investigators found blood in multiple locations inside the apartment: in the third-floor lobby, on the staircase leading to the victim’s fourth-floor room and in large quantities inside the room itself. “We suspect that the victim was physically assaulted first in her room, hit with a stick-like article on the head, dragged down the flight of stairs, and then assaulted on the third floor as well. He raped her as well,” a senior police officer said.

The parents told police they found their daughter on the floor of their bedroom — one level below her own room — naked and bleeding from the head and with injuries to her face, a phone charger cable wound around her neck. They dressed her, wrapped her in a bedsheet and drove her to Fortis Escorts Heart Institute in Sukhdev Vihar, where she was declared dead on arrival. Police were formally notified by the hospital at around 9am; senior officers met the family there before proceeding to the crime scene.

A postmortem conducted later on Wednesday confirmed she had been sexually assaulted; strangulation was established as the cause of death. The body was subsequently handed over to the family for last rites.

A Delhi Police team travelled to Alwar, where Meena’s family resides.

According to an officer, they were informed by Rajasthan police that Meena had allegedly sexually assaulted a woman in Alwar on Tuesday night, hours before the Delhi killing.

A senior police officer said the accused sold one of his phones for ₹10,000 on Tuesday in Alwar, and allegedly raped his first victim late in the evening. He then hired a van used as an ambulance by a local hospital for ₹6,000 to come to Delhi. “However, he reached Delhi and left the van without paying the driver,” the officer said.