Two brothers arrested for the murder of 85-year-old woman during Capital riots
NEW DELHI: Two brothers, Arun Kumar, 26, and Varun Kumar, 22, residents of Gamri in northeast Delhi, have been arrested for the alleged murder of a 85-year-old woman in their neighbourhood during the communal violence last month, police said on Thursday.
The police said in a statement that the brothers were part of a group that had organised a rally in the neighbourhood in support of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act on February 25.
It soon turned into a mob that ended up storming the house of the victim, identified as Akbari, robbing jewellery and cash worth around ₹8 lakh and setting the house on fire. Akbari’s son Saeed Salmani, who has a garment business in the ground floor of the same building, was the complainant in the case.
Vinod Kumar, father of the two accused, dismissed the findings of the police and said that his sons were rather part of the “rescue operation”, which was led by locals when the police was yet to answer to distress calls during the violence.
As many as 13 people were rescued by the police from the four-storey building but the octogenarian died of asphyxiation, collapsing on the second floor. It was on Wednesday, the brothers were arrested after their identities were ascertained with the help of photographs, video clips and testimony of eye witnesses, the police said.
Akbari’s body was recovered around 2pm on the same day, after the fire was doused, and she was taken to GTB Hospital where she was declared dead, the hospital records showed.
The First Information Report (FIR) pertaining to this case, which HT has seen, said that a “mob” was spotted by the complainant (Akbari’s son) in the locality chanting “Jai Sri Ram” on February 25, as they rampaged through the lanes in Gamri.
The accused and the victim are residents of the same locality – lane number 5 in Gamri.
HT on Thursday also met the complainant – Akbari’s son Salmani – who refused to comment either on the police probe or the chain of events as narrated by his neighbour, Kumar.
While Arun is a wedding photographer, Varun works with a cooperative society. Both of them are school graduates, unmarried and not associated with any political or cultural group, said Kumar.
The accused have three sisters, of which the youngest is the only one to have graduated college. Vinod Kumar, while elaborating on his family, started listing his “assets” casually.
He went on to mention his two sons, who are now in police custody, a house that he built more than 40 years ago and his two cows – that can be spotted tied in the porch.
Lane number 5 in Gamri is home to around 18 families, of which 12 are Muslims.
The other six families are Hindu Gujjars – the dominant landowning caste in the transYamuna region.