Toddler made to sit in car with aunt’s body
NEWDELHI: A toddler was made to travel from Delhi to Mussoorie in a car with his murdered aunt’s body to ensure 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 footage from a CCTV — installed by a neighbour a week before the murder—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 worked as a property dealer who was often short of money and had been har- assing Silky for dowry ever since their marriage around seven years ago, alleged Silky’s brother, Supreme Agarwal.
Lalit and his family had allegedly thought of murdering Silky around two months ago because of frequent quarrels, DCP said. “Lalit was trying to mislead us into believing that the murder happened in heat of the moment. 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 after a quarrel on December 3, he was alone. Since she did not die of strangulation, he called his relatives in front of whom he used a hammer to kill her. He then disfigured her face,” he added.