Palam murders: Man killed family members after quarrel

A police officer said Keshav claimed that the trigger for his killing spree was a quarrel he had with his family over his instability in life.

Two days after a 25-year-old man was arrested for killing his grandmother, parents and sister at their residence in south-west Delhi’s Palam, a police officer aware of the matter on Thursday said the accused has admitted that he killed his relatives one after the other, as and when they arrived home.

Police personnel at the crime scene in south west Delhi’s Palam on Wednesday. (Sanjeev Verma)

The accused has been identified as Keshav Saini, and his extended family has claimed that he was addicted to drugs, and he had returned from a stint at a rehabilitation clinic just months before he committed the murders on Tuesday evening. To be sure, police have said that he was not under the influence at the time of the murders.

On Thursday, a police officer, on condition of anonymity, said Keshav claimed that the trigger for his killing spree was a quarrel he had with his family over his instability in life.

“The man hasn’t been very cooperative with the interrogation. But he has admitted that he killed them one by one as they returned home… When asked about the trigger leading to the murders, he admitted that he had a fight with his parents on Tuesday morning over his instability in life and how he doesn’t have a job. He claims that they used to constantly tell him to change his ways, due to which he developed a hatred for them,” the officer said.

According to police, Keshav on Tuesday morning had a fight with his parents about money, and threatened to kill the family. Later, at around 5.30pm, he quarrelled with his grandmother Dishano Devi (&%), following which he strangled her to death. Over the next four hours, he proceeded to stab his father Dinesh Saini (50) and mother Darshan Saini (45) as they returned from work, and then finally killed his younger sister Urvashi Saini (22) after she returned home. Before she was killed, Urvashi had let out cries for help, which had alerted neighbours, who called the police, leading to Keshav’s arrest.