On the outside, the building looks like any other house in this posh corner of Gurugram.
A towering arched window pane dominates the three-storey facade. A green tarpaulin sheet dangles from the top, perhaps to shield against the punishing summer sun or monsoon drizzles. A white Thar stands in a narrow driveway, flanked by motorbikes.
But it is inside this house, in Gurugram’s upmarket Sector 57, that 51-year-old builder Deepak Yadav allegedly pumped four bullets into his daughter, tennis player Radhika Yadav, while she was cooking breakfast around 10.30 AM on Thursday.
Police said the victim was cooking a meal for her mother, Manju Yadav, who was celebrating her birthday.
The autopsy confirmed that Radhika was shot four times in the back.
“Four entry wounds in the back were found. All four pellets were retrieved from the body. There were no exit wounds. Her heart and lungs were pierced causing excessive blood loss resulting in the death,” said Dr Deepak Mathur, Gurugram civil hospital forensic wing in-charge.
Deepak has confessed to the crime, and the initial police investigation has hinted at a toxic cocktail of social pressure, patriarchal insecurities, and wounded ego as one of the motives behind the shocking crime. But the crime has also shaken one of India’s most prosperous pockets, where skyrocketing salaries and real-estate heft often hide an ugly underbelly of caustic social attitudes that are steeped in an aversion to modern life, especially women’s freedoms.
“When I used to go to Wazirabad village to get milk, people used to taunt me, saying that I live off my daughter’s earnings. Some people even questioned my daughter’s character. I told my daughter to close her tennis academy, but she refused. This situation kept bothering me as it hurt my dignity,” Deepak told the police during questioning, officials said.
{{/usCountry}}“When I used to go to Wazirabad village to get milk, people used to taunt me, saying that I live off my daughter’s earnings. Some people even questioned my daughter’s character. I told my daughter to close her tennis academy, but she refused. This situation kept bothering me as it hurt my dignity,” Deepak told the police during questioning, officials said.
{{/usCountry}}“Because of this tension, I took out my licensed revolver, and when my daughter Radhika was cooking in the kitchen, I shot her from behind, hitting her waist. I have killed my daughter,” he has told the police, according to officials.