Ghaziabad teen held for killing man ‘who attempted to rape him’

Police say the accused claimed sexual assault attempt. The victim was stabbed and his face disfigured to delay identification, investigators said.

A 17-year-old boy from Ghaziabad has been apprehended for the murder of a 39-year-old Indian Railways technician, whose disfigured body was found on Monday in a rented room in north Delhi’s Subzi Mandi railway colony eight days after he was reported missing, police said on Tuesday.

Body was found eight days after the victim went missing. Police traced the teen using CCTV footage and a UPI transaction from the victim’s account. (Shutterstock)

During interrogation, the accused told investigators that he killed the man after the latter tried to sexually assault him.

The semi-naked and partially decomposed body of the victim, who had been missing since January 25, was discovered on Monday with multiple stab wounds to his neck and chest and his face disfigured beyond recognition, investigators aware of the case details said.

According to police, the teenager told them that he met the victim outside a bar in Paharganj on the night of January 25. The teenager said that he sought money from the victim, who then took him to a secretly rented room in the railway colony. There, the man allegedly demanded sexual favours and tried to force himself on the boy, investigators said citing the boy’s testimony.

Enraged, the boy hit the victim with a gas cylinder, then attacked him with a broken piece of glass, inflicting fatal wounds to his neck and chest, the officer cited above said. He also disfigured the man’s face in an attempt to delay investigation. After the attack, the minor told police that he changed into the victim’s clothes, stole ₹2,000 cash, a credit card, and a mobile phone, locked the room from outside, slid the key under the door, and then fled to his house in Ghaziabad.

The next day, he withdrew ₹4,000 using the victim’s card and purchased a new phone worth around ₹14,000, said additional deputy commissioner of police (north) Sumit Kumar Jha.

The case finally came to light on Monday when the victim’s brother called police after finding the body after learning about the rented room, said Jha.

The brother told police that the victim had left home on his motorcycle on January 25, but did not return since then. On January 27, one of the victim’s friends told his family that he found the victim’s motorcycle parked near RK Ashram Metro Station. On February 2, the victim’s brother came to the room after learning that his brother had secretly taken it on rent and occasionally visited it with friends, the additional DCP said, adding that they found the body there on Monday.

Police registered a murder case and scanned CCTV footage, which showed the victim arriving with the teenager. A key breakthrough came when a UPI transaction from the victim’s account was traced to the minor’s account.

ADCP Jha said the teenager was apprehended based on this digital evidence and subsequently confessed to the crime.

The minor also suffered cuts on his hand during the struggle.