A 45-year-old man in Noida has been arrested for allegedly murdering his 14-year-old stepdaughter after she complained that he was leering at her. The incident occurred in Jewar's RR Colony, where the man, identified as Surendra, lived with his fourth wife and the victim, Anjali.
The Crime
According to police, on the morning of April 20, Anjali told her mother she wanted to return to Delhi to live with her grandmother, feeling unsafe due to her stepfather's behavior. While his wife was resting, Surendra took Anjali out in his e-rickshaw under the pretext of running an errand. He drove her to an empty plot half a kilometer from their home, where he assaulted her and strangled her with a rope. He then stuffed her body into a sack, packed other sacks with sand to mimic a delivery load, and dumped the sack on a deserted stretch of Yamuna Pushta Road between Kanigadhi and Jewar Khadar. He returned home a few hours later and pretended not to know where Anjali was.
Missing Person Report
The next morning, Surendra walked into Jewar police station with his wife and filed a missing person complaint, claiming Anjali had not returned after being sent to buy milk around 11 am the previous day. A case under Section 137(2) (kidnapping) of the BNS was registered, and teams were formed to trace her.
Investigation and Arrest
Police quickly analyzed CCTV footage from the area and found a clip showing Anjali with Surendra on the morning of April 20, the last time she was seen. When confronted with the footage, Surendra broke down and confessed. During questioning, he revealed that Anjali had largely lived with her grandmother in Delhi and visited Jewar periodically. About a month before her death, she had told her grandmother that she felt unsafe around her stepfather. The grandmother traveled from Delhi to confront Surendra, warning him to behave. Furious at being confronted, Surendra planned to kill her, police said.
On Tuesday, police recovered Anjali's body from the bushes in a mutilated condition, over a week after she was killed. It was sent for autopsy, and murder charges under BNS Section 101 were added. Surendra was arrested and is in police custody.
