West Delhi murder: A March wedding planned, texts gave away their relationship
Heavy security in the area, a day after the 23-year-old was stabbed to death. (Express photo: Gajendra Yadav) Heavy security in the area, a day after the 23-year-old was stabbed to death. (Express photo: Gajendra Yadav)
A few days ago, 23-year-old Ankit Saxena jokingly asked his childhood friends to be witnesses at his court marriage to his 20-year-old girlfriend, who belongs to a minority community. On Thursday night, they stood witness to an entirely different event — while one saw Ankit being stabbed, allegedly by the woman’s father, the others watched his funeral.
Ankit was stabbed to death allegedly after an altercation with the woman’s family members, who disapproved of their relationship.
At the woman’s maternal aunt’s home in the same colony, her 12-year-old sister recollected a fight between her parents and the 20-year-old a day before
the murder: “Our 16-year-old brother discovered some intimate messages between aapa and Ankit bhaiya and showed them to our parents. There was a big fight at home. Mummy and papa said they will get aapa married to someone else. Papa got a stick to beat her up but mummy stopped him. The next day was normal… aapa made porridge for mummy. But at 7.50 pm, she locked us in and left the house.”
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Police said they will go through the contents of Ankit’s two mobile phones. Sitting outside Ankit’s home on Saturday morning, five of his friends retold the tale of the relationship.
They said the two had picked a wedding date — March 22, Ankit’s birthday. “They grew up together, playing hide-and-seek, celebrating festivals and even addressing each other as bhaiya and behen. As they got older, their feelings changed, as did their vocabulary. The woman had lived in the same lane till three years ago,” a friend said.
It was a year ago that Ankit’s friends found out about his “serious” feelings towards her. “I found her photograph in his phone once and understood they were in a relationship,” his friend Divyanshu (23), said.
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Meeting each other was tough and so was talking. So, Ankit gave her a phone which she hid from her family. “She wasn’t allowed to leave her home alone; she was often accompanied by her mother. Ankit would sometimes drop her back home from Peeragarhi, where she was doing a course,” Aman Narang (19) said.
“He told us about the tamasha after they were spotted together once… and her engagement to a 28-year-old man. We never thought he would be killed,” Narang said, looking at a guitar on Ankit’s bed.
The woman’s grandmother, meanwhile, said the family broke off her engagement to a banker after “she pleaded with them to let her study”.
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