Want nothing but death for the killer, says girl’s mother

NEW DELHI: Nothing less than a death penalty will bring justice to my daughter, said the mother of the 16-year-old girl who was brutally murdered by a 20-yearold man in Shahbad Dairy, after performing her last rites on Monday.

Just hours before her daughter was stabbed at least 16 times and pounded with a stone slab allegedly by her former lover late on Sunday evening, the two had spoken on the phone at around 1.30pm. The girl used to stay away from her parents for days on a stretch, which irked her mother.

“I have a right to be angry with her for staying at her friend’s place, so I first scolded her for being away for the last 10-12 days,” said the mother. But the girl told her that she would return in the next two to three days when her friend’s husband was likely to be released from jail in a criminal case, the details of which remained unknown.

She hung up the phone after managing to calm me down, in her usual loving manner, the inconsolable mother said. “She said, ‘Mummy, I love you. You are so nice’ ”, the mother said, before breaking into tears at the local crematorium on Monday afternoon. The call was their last. The girl was allegedly killed just around 300 metres from their home in a narrow alley at a time when their were enough alarmed passersby and mute bystanders, who witnessed the gory killing play out in from of them.

They even saw the accused man escape, as can be seen in a video of the killing, confirmed as genuine by the police. Sahil was later arrested from Bulandshahr, police said. The girl’s father, who works as a mason, spoke even less to her.

“We last spoke some 10 days ago when she needed me to pay the dues of a ghee seller,” said her father. Both the mother and the father were unaware that the girl was in a relationship with the accused for the last eight months, they told the police. The family belongs originally to Uttar Pradesh and lived in a tiny onebedroom house in Shahbad Dairy. Apart from the parents, the girl had a 10-year-old brother, who didn’t appear fully aware of his loss at the crematorium.

The girl studied at a government school and had appeared for the Class 10 board exams this year.

“We don’t know how much she scored. But she told us that she had passed,” said her father. She aspired to become a lawyer, but for the time being she promised that she sill study to clear Class 12, her father added. The victim had several friends in the neighbourhood and surrounding areas and would often stay at their homes for 10-15 days at a stretch, said her mother.

But never did they hear about her friendship with any Sahil, both the parents said.

“We hadn’t even heard of any Sahil or Sunny (an alias of the suspect),” said her mother, adding that they never received any threats or knew of her daughter being threatened by Sahil or anyone else. Around 9pm on Sunday, her mother said that she was at home when her daughter’s friend, who w as accompanying her at the time of the attack, told her that someone had killed her daughter.