97-yr-old woman strangled, robbed; relative arrested

NEW DELHI: A 97-year-old woman was strangled to death, allegedly by a distant relative, and was robbed of her valuables, in outer Delhi’s Rohini on Tuesday.

Police said the woman had gone missing from northwest Delhi’s Maurya Enclave for past 24 hours.

According to the police, during the early hours of Monday, Babu Ali, a resident of Pitampura, visited Maurya Enclave police station and reported that his mother, Nathia Ali, was missing. A missing complaint was lodged and the police launched a search for the elderly woman.

Deputy commissioner of police (northwest) Aslam Khan said while police were searching for the woman, they received information about a body lying on the roadside in Rohini.

Police said t he physical appearance of the body matched the description of the woman who was reported missing.

“Ali was called in to identify the body and he confirmed that the body was that of his mother. A case of murder was registered and the body was sent to the Baba Saheb Ambedkar hospital for a post-mortem examination,” the DCP said.

Khan said the autopsy revealed that Nathia died of strangulation. “We collected the CCTV footage from the area where her body was found and also from near the woman’s house. During the probe, we found that she was last spotted leaving her house with a man. The footage was shown to Ali and he identified the man as 22-yearold Firoz Khan, one of their distant relatives. A police team then detained Firoz on Wednesday,” the officer said.

He said during questioning, Firoz admitted that he took the woman to a secluded stretch and asked her to take off her gold earrings and silver bangles. Police said the man then strangled the woman and fled with the jewellery. “He was arrested and on his instance, the gold and silver jewellery was recovered,” the DCP said.

A police officer said they are questioning Firoz to ascertain how he managed to take the elderly woman to the secluded stretch. “He is being questioned further to establish the sequence of events,” the officer said.