E-Paper
‘I saw a girl being chased, but did not realise she was my daughter’
The girl was hacked to death a day before her 16th birthday by a 21-year-old man, identified by the police as Pradeep, who was stalking her for the past eight months.
She held at least a dozen taekwondo medals and would have defended herself, had she been not attacked by her stalker with an axe from behind, the family of a 15-year-old girl who was murdered on Monday in south Delhi’s Moti Bagh area, said on Thursday.
The girl was hacked to death a day before her 16th birthday by a 21-year-old man, identified by the police as Pradeep, who was stalking her for the past eight months.
The girl’s mother was witness to the attack. However, since she was standing at a distance from the spot where the attacker dealt the blows on the girl’s forehead, she did not know at that moment that it was her daughter who was under attack.
“Pradeep must be hanged,” said the girl’s 40-year-old mother at the south Delhi hutment where she lives with her husband and three other children.
She said her daughter was practising the martial art particularly hard, and stayed vigilant ever since Pradeep started stalking her.
“I was drying clothes outside my house when I saw a girl being chased on the other side of the park. She fell down and it looked like the man who was chasing her hit her a few times and ran away. Till that time, I was not aware that it was my daughter who was being killed right before my eyes. She may even have called for help, screamed, but I could not save her,” she said, breaking down.
The girl’s father, who does odd jobs in nearby buildings, said that a few days before his daughter was killed, she told him that if Pradeep ever tried to harm her, he should ensure that he was punished.
He said Pradeep stopped stalking his daughter around two months ago, when he confronted him. It led to a fight with Pradeep and his friends near the south Moti Bagh market, where the family ran a roadside fruit shop.
“I thought the matter was settled. A few weeks ago, I saw him sitting with the society’s security guard, but I ignored him. I did not file a police complaint back then because I did not think things would come to this. Apparently, he was holding a grudge against us and settled the score by killing my daughter,” he said.
The man said he used to drop his daughter to the shop every day before going ahead with his work. But on July 12, she walked alone. “She left early that day... I will regret this for the rest of my life,” the father said.
The victim’s 12-year-old sister was planning a surprise birthday party for her. She said they asked for ₹1,500 from her father to buy a bag, a pair of sneakers and jeans.
Senior Delhi Police personnel said that Pradeep was arrested from his sister’s house in Palwal in neighbouring Haryana, a day after he killed the girl.
“He bought the axe from a market in RK Puram around a month before the attack,” said deputy commissioner of police (southwest), Ingit Pratap Singh.
The rented room where Pradeep lived with his parents has been locked since his arrest.
Residents of Pradeep’s neighbourhood remember him as an “unemployed” man who was often whiling away time with boys from the locality.
“He probably used to work somewhere till a year ago, but lost his job during the Covid lockdown. He was a wastrel, but we never thought that he would go to the extent of killing someone,” said a local shop-owner, who asked not to be named.
