Toddler made to sit in car with aunt’s body from Delhi to Mussoorie to avoid police

The husband, his father and brother, were among five members of the family arrested on Thursday for the murder after CCTV footage confirmed their alleged involvement. The body was recovered from a gorge on Friday morning.

A toddler was made to travel from Delhi to Mussoorie in a car with his murdered aunt’s body to ensure that the vehicle was not checked by authorities anywhere on the route, police said.

Silky Jain, 36, was allegedly bludgeoned to death by her husband Lalit and his family in north Delhi’s Rani Bagh on December 3 and her body was taken to Mussoorie and thrown in a gorge.

The husband, his father and brother, were among five members of the family arrested on Thursday for the murder after CCTV footage confirmed their alleged involvement. The body was recovered from a gorge on Friday morning.

“The killers knew that there was a risk of the car getting checked on the way to Mussoorie. Since a car with a family inside is less likely to be stopped for checking, the wife of Lalit’s brother was asked to come along with them. But since they did not want to leave anything to chance, they asked the woman to bring her two-and-a-half-year-old daughter along,” the DCP told Hindustan Times.

Lalit and his family had allegedly thought of murdering Silky around two months ago because of frequent quarrels at home, the DCP said.

“Lalit has been trying to mislead us into believing that the murder happened in the heat of the moment even though the family had it on their mind for two months. For the last several weeks, he had been trying to show that all was well. He had even taken her to Guwahati for a holiday to mislead others,” said Khan.

“But when Lalit strangulated her following a quarrel on December 3, he was alone. Since she had not died of strangulation, he called his relatives in front of whom he used a hammer to kill her. He then disfigured her face so that she would not be recognised,” Khan added.

For the next eight days, Lalit allegedly went on with his life before repeated phone calls from Silky’s parents forced him to lodge a missing complaint with the police. While Silky’s family immediately pointed the finger of suspicion at Lalit, footage from a CCTV camera further sealed the case.

“Luckily, a neighbour had installed CCTV cameras just a week before the murder. Lalit was unaware of it. The camera caught the family members loading Silky’s body in the Toyota Etios car to take the body to Mussoorie,” said the DCP.