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Sexual assault charges added in Delhi’s Shahbad Dairy murder case
The police said that they are investigating whether the 16-year-old girl’s killer had sexually abused her.
Three months after a 16-year-old girl was brutally murdered by her stalker in outer Delhi’s Shahbad Dairy, police officers on Sunday said that they have filed a fresh first information report (FIR) with rape charges, adding that they are investigating whether the minor’s killer had sexually abused her.
On May 28, 20-year-old Sahil, stabbed the teenager — his former girlfriend — at least 16 times, kicked her limp body, and battered her relentlessly with a stone slab in a ruthless attack, even as several passersby did little to intervene, the police said. The murder was caught on a surveillance camera and led to widespread outrage across the Capital.
After committing the murder, the 20-year-old fled to his aunt’s house at Bulandshahr in Uttar Pradesh, and was arrested from that city the next day after police traced a call he made to his mother.
Sahil, who is currently in judicial custody, was first booked for murder, and police later added Indian Penal Code sections 354(a) (sexual harassment), and 509 (insulting the modesty of a woman), and sections of the Arms Act, the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (Pocso) Act, and the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe Act.
The police had simultaneously sent the victim’s samples to the forensic science laboratory (FSL) to determine if she was sexually assaulted.
On Sunday, officers said that a fresh first information report (FIR) was registered at Shahbad Dairy police station under IPC section 376 (rape) and under the Pocso Act.
“We received the FSL report last week. Since the report suggested that the victim was sexually abused, we registered a separate FIR,” a police officer said, declining to be named as he is not authorised to speak to the media.
He added that police will investigate whether Sahil sexually abused her, or someone else. “It does not matter whether or not the victim gave her consent to have sex because she was a minor,” said the officer.
