Man held for strangling woman in Lahori Gate hotel room

During interrogation, he disclosed that the woman was putting pressure on him to marry her. He did not want to marry her and made a plan to kill her

A day after the body of a 25-year-old woman was found in a hotel room in north Delhi’s Lahori Gate area, Delhi Police said they have arrested her 24-year-old male friend for allegedly strangling her to death. Police said the accused was “angry” with the woman for pressuring him to marry her and had planned the murder.

He called her to meet him at a hotel room in Lahori Gate, had physical relations with her there and later strangled her to death, said police. (Representational image)

The deceased, a resident of the Maujpur area, worked as an accountant at a shop in the Chandni Chowk area. The accused, Abhishek Tiwari, is a BCom student at Delhi University’s School of Open Learning.

Around 12-12.30am on Thursday, staff at Prince Hotel in Lahori Gate called the police and informed them that one of their rooms had been locked for hours and the guest was not responding to knocks. Police said they forced open the door and found the woman’s body on the bed. There were bloodstains on the bed and on her clothes, police said.

DCP (north) Raja Banthia said the woman had checked into the hotel on Wednesday afternoon with Tiwari, who left the hotel around 5pm after locking the room from outside.

Investigators said Tiwari was identified based on CCTV footage from the hotel. He was arrested from the Shahdara area on Friday.

Banthia said, “We learned that the accused met the deceased through a common friend two years ago. During interrogation, he disclosed that the woman was putting pressure on him to marry her. He did not want to marry her and made a plan to kill her. He called her to meet him at a hotel room, had physical relations with her there and later strangled her to death.”

Tiwari was produced before a judge on Friday and has been remanded in police custody. Police said they are also looking into other angles, including sexual assault.

The woman is survived by her parents, grandmother and a younger sister. She had been working as an accountant for two years.

Her father, who works at a departmental store, said, “We began looking for her when she went missing on Wednesday. She left home around 11am. We called her on the phone but she didn’t pick up. Later, we checked at her office and found that she had taken leave. We called the police and told them that she was missing. Had they traced her on Wednesday, she could have been saved.”