Murdered Noida techie was jovial, friendly, ‘not afraid of anyone’

Anjali Rathour, a 23-year-old employee of the mobile handset firm Lava International Limited, was shot dead at Shatabdi Rail Vihar in Noida. Rathour had been the ‘best employee’ at the company for several months.

A 23-year-old engineer, who was shot dead on Wednesday morning in Sector 62, was conferred with the ‘best employee’ award at mobile manufacturing company Lava in Sector 64 on several occasions.

Anjali was scheduled to complete her year in service at the Lava plant on June 9. (Sourced image)

Anjali was scheduled to complete her year in service at the Lava plant on June 9 and was very happy. She was student of electronics and communication (E&C) at Lovely Professional University in Jallandhar and was one of the two students to have secured jobs during campus placement.

Her family members were shocked after receiving a call at 7am saying their daughter had been killed. “This morning she got up after receiving a phone call and ran to the ground floor. This suggests she was panicked. She had no rivalry with anyone,” said Jyoti Rathour, her mother.

Over the past one year, the six women lived together at 303 flat of block B in Shatabdi Rail Vihar in Sector 62. “She was jolly and a fun loving person. She wasn’t scared of anything. Sometimes we heard her shouting on the phone, but she would later say it was a call from a friend and everything was fine,” said her roommate Damini.

Anjali’s younger sister Anamika, 17, and brother Ajay, 12, live with their parents at Jagadhri, Haryana. A week ago, she visited her home after her sister met an accident. Her father Tejpal Singh, who works as an office superintendent at Indian Railways workshop at Jagadhri said that Anjali was supposed to visit them again this weekend.

“I regret not being able to speak to her last night. She was a responsible daughter who was always by her siblings in good times and bad,” her father said.

A stack of books placed on the table at Anjali’s room in Shatabdi Rail Vihar bore testimony to her penchant for literature and competitive services. A writing on the wall said, “I have my goals. Lava is just a subsidiary.”

Another wall writing said, “ Hope, may it be a light to you in a dark places, when all other lights go out.”