IRS Officer’s Daughter Raped & Killed; Suspect Held

Synopsis

The young engineering graduate and Civil Services aspirant who was a daughter of a senior IRS officer was raped and murdered at her Kailash Hills home in south Delhi in the early hours of Wednesday morning. The arrest of a 19 year old former domestic help known as Rahul Meena was made in a hotel in Dwarka. CCTV footage depicts him being on the scene, according to police, and Rajasthan Police had been seeking him on a separate case of molestation lodged the night before. The case is registered in various provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) such as the rape, murder, and robbery provisions.

In the early morning of Wednesday, the Delhi Police said that a 22-year-old female, the daughter of a top Indian Revenue Service (IRS) official, was raped and killed inside the family house in the South Delhi area of Kailash Hills. The alleged suspect who was 19-year-old Rahul Meena, a former domestic worker was arrested later that evening in a hotel in Dwarka.

The case was brought to notice when the IRS officer and his wife came back to the gym at around 8 a.m. and found the body of their daughter lying on the floor. Joint Commissioner of Police (Southern Range) Vijay Kumar told the media that the couple took the victim to a private hospital in New Friends Colony and reported to the police around 8.45 a.m.

The chronological order of events

The CCTV video of the house where the family lived, which the couple provided to investigators, depicts the accused entering via the gate at 6.37 a.m. and leaving it at 7.20 a.m. - a duration of about 45 minutes. Police say that Mr. Rahul had information on where the couple left their house keys and had taken advantage of this information to get access to the house without leaving a trace of forced entry.

The victim, an engineering graduate who was about to take the Civil Services examination, was allegedly beaten up by the accused with a rod in which he suffered blunt trauma on the head. Then he raped her and choked her with her charging phone cable, a cop officer said. There was also embezzlement of money.

At least 45 minutes, a police officer said, Rahul was in the house before he left with some cash

History of the defendant The IRS officer employed Mr. Rahul after being referred by a colleague. He was fired around a month and a half prior to the incident when he supposedly took 1.5 lakh of money on a loan to a neighbour and did not pay it back. The officer said they sacked Rahul when he had borrowed a 1.5 lakh of rupees in the hands of a neighbour and could not pay back.

The family had also reported a trend of minor financial misconduct. According to the account given to the police by the family, Rahul would borrow money by taking a loan to purchase items at local shops and never pay it back. In addition, he was addicted to online gaming and gambling, said a police officer based on the family report.

Rajasthan Police connection

In the process of the investigation, Delhi Police discovered that the Rajasthan police were also independently looking after the accused. At approximately 10 p.m. on Tuesday--the night before the crime was found--a 22-year-old neighbour in Mr. Rahul's home village of Rajgarh, in the Alwar district of Rajasthan had gone to the police alleging that he had been molested by him.

Rajesh Meena, Station House Officer of Rajgarh police station, affirmed that various teams had been constituted to arrest the accused. In order to avoid detection, Mr. Rahul had hired an ambulance to travel to south Delhi at ₹6,000, which the Delhi Police said.

Arrest and charges

He later was tracked to a hotel in Dwarka and arrested in the evening. He has been taken into custody using a number of provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), such as those that relate to rape, murder and robbery. Investigations are ongoing.

The case casts doubt on the effectiveness of background checking of domestic employees in urban families - a question that has occasionally been raised in policy debates but has never led to a single national approach to the subject.