Delhi woman dies after being dragged by car for 12 kms, 5 arrested

A 20-year-old woman was killed when a car that hit her motorbike and dragged her for around 12 kilometres in Delhi’s Sultanpuri on early Sunday (January 1) morning.

Five men who were aboard the Maruti Suzuki Baleno, are suspected to have been drunk and have been arrested.

The woman, a resident of Aman Vihar, worked as a beautician and according to police was returning from an event when the incident occurred.

The woman’s family, on the other hand, has alleged that she was sexually assaulted.

Police said that the car hit the woman’s Scooty and dragged it to more than 10-12 km even as her limbs were stuck between the wheels.

Special Commissioner of Police (Law and Order, Zone 1) Deependra Pathak said, the Kanjhawala police station in Rohini was apprised of the incident through a distress call at around 3.20 am about a body being dragged by a Maruti Baleno towards Qutubgarh.

At around 4.11 am, another caller informed police about a body lying on the Kanjhawala main road.

“The staff deployed at pickets were alerted as well as the message was flashed to search the vehicle. At 4.11 am, information was received in Kanjhawala police station about a woman’s body lying near Shani Bazar in Krishan Vihar. Subsequently, the case was transferred to the Sultanpuri police station,” Pathak said.

The woman’s body was found naked and with broken limbs and sent to Sanjay Gandhi Memorial Hospital in Mangolpuri.

That the woman’s body was recovered without clothes has raised the suspicion of her family that she was sexually assaulted before being killed. “Her clothes cannot be completely torn off. Her entire body was naked when they found her. I want a full investigation,” the woman’s mother said.

The woman, who is survived by her mother, four sisters and two brothers, was the eldest and the family’s sole breadwinner.

The Maruti Baleno car was traced to a person living in Rohini. A person, who received the car as a dowry had lent it to his friend Deepak Khanna, one of the accused. Police found the other accused after interrogating Khanna.

The accused were identified as Deepak Khanna (26), a driver working in gramin sewa; Amit Khanna (25), who works for SBI cards in Uttam Nagar; Krishan (27), who works at Connaught Place; Mithun (26), a hairdresser in Naraina and Mittal (27), who works as a food dealer in Sultanpuri.

“Police arrested the accused on the basis of the registered car number. The accused said their car met with an accident with a Scooty, but they were unaware that she was dragged along with their car for several kilometres,” Delhi Police officer Harendra K Singh told ANI.

An officer at Kanjhawala police station, however, said that the accused told the police that they were scared after realizing that the woman was dragged by their car and once they reached the main road, they removed the body from the vehicle and fled.

Police are also probing if the driver was drunk at the time of the incident.

Delhi Commission for Women chairperson Swati Maliwal has issued summons to the police on the incident.

“Her body was found without clothes on the road. This is a very scary incident. I am issuing summons to Delhi Police to appear before the panel. What were the security arrangements on the occasion of New Year?” she tweeted.

Expressing grief over the incident, Delhi’s Lieutenant Governor VK Saxena tweeted, “My head hangs in shame over the inhuman crime in Kanjhawala-Sultanpuri today morning and I am shocked at the monstrous insensitivity of the perpetrators. The accused have been apprehended. All aspects are being thoroughly looked into.”