23-Year-Old Man Accused of Rape and Murder in Delhi Allegedly Committed Another Rape in Rajasthan Hours Prior

NEW DELHI: Hours before he allegedly raped and murdered a 22-year-old woman inside her south Delhi residence on Wednesday morning, the suspect — a 23-year-old man — allegedly raped another woman and tried to strangle her too in Rajasthan's Alwar, his hometown. SP (Alwar) Sudheer Choudhary confirmed the development to TOI and said his team received a complaint from the woman in Alwar, after which an FIR was registered and an investigation began. Within hours, the cops were approached by Delhi Police requesting assistance in catching the same suspect.

The survivor's husband said he had gone to his village for a wedding, while she stayed back in Alwar with their two children. "At 10.30 pm on Tuesday, the 23-year-old man knocked on the door of the house. When the woman opened the door, he forced his way inside, gagged her, threw her to the floor and raped her. He also bit her in several places and tried to strangle her," according to the FIR.

After allegedly committing the crime in Alwar, the man reached the highway to Delhi and stopped an ambulance, telling the driver he would pay Rs 5,000 to Rs 6,000 if he took him there. However, midway, he stopped the vehicle, got down, and fled without making any payment.

Cops have learned that the man allegedly sold three mobile phones, including one of his and his brother's, for a total of Rs 13,000, while he was on his way to Delhi.

When the man reached south Delhi, he allegedly committed the second crime at the house where he used to be a domestic worker. According to police, the building in which this crime took place was adequately secured. "Along with full coverage of CCTV cameras, doors on each floor of the building were locked. The man had to open at least four locks to enter the house where the woman was sleeping. Three of the locks could only be opened through pass codes and one using a key. The man knew the passcodes as he used to work there," a senior cop said, adding that there was no sign of forced entry.

While analysing CCTV footage, police saw a man wearing a yellow shirt with black trousers entering the house, but while exiting was seen wearing white trousers. He did not have a bag when he went in, but was seen leaving with a black backpack.

As soon as the man in the footage was suspected to be the former domestic worker, Delhi Police formed around 15 teams to nab him. Cops conducted raids in multiple states, including Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan and UP. The locations of his relatives and acquaintances in north Delhi's Palam and Kamla Nagar were also raided for leads. His photographs were flashed to all police stations in the capital.

The exercise led the cops to a mobile number of the man that only few of his relatives knew. The phone's location was tracked to the Palam-Dwarka area. The teams launched a major search operation and ultimately traced him to a hotel around 6 pm the same day.

According to police, the suspect was addicted to online gaming, alcohol and drugs. He was known to be aggressive and picked up fights in his village as well. Of late, he had borrowed a lot of money from people and was under pressure to clear his debts. As he was aware of the finances of his former employers in south Delhi, he chose to target them, police said.