A 22-year-old IIT graduate and UPSC aspirant was brutally raped and murdered in her south Delhi residence on Wednesday.
The suspect, a former household employee, allegedly carried out a planned series of crimes across states and tried to use the victim’s fingerprints to open the family’s locker during a robbery.
The accused, 23-year-old Rahul Meena, was intimately familiar with the family’s routine. Investigators revealed that Meena had been fired from his job at the upscale Kailash Hills residence two months ago due to his habit of borrowing money from neighbours to fund a gambling addiction.
Meena waited for the victim’s parents to leave for their daily gym session, then fetched a hidden smart key and entered the fourth-floor apartment at 6:39 am.
He strangled the victim with a cable, raped her while she was still alive but out cold, and then dragged her body down a flight of stairs in an attempt to access a fingerprint-protected locker.
Meena was arrested from a hotel in Dwarka at around 8 pm on Wednesday and told the magistrate that he committed the crime for money and needed the victim’s fingerprint to open the locker.
Police have booked Meena under provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita for rape, murder, and robbery.
