Men Who Dragged Woman’s Body 13 km Had Borrowed Car Hours Earlier: Police

The men who hit a 20-year-old with their car in New Year and dragged her body for over an hour through the streets of west Delhi, have confessed to being drunk, says the First Information Report filed by the police. After hitting the woman, who fell from her scooty, they apparently panicked and were trying to get away, the FIR said.

Anjali Singh was returning from work around 2 am when the accident took place. After she fell from the scooty, her body got tangled in the undercarriage of the car, which ran for 13 km before the occupants apparently became aware of it, the FIR read.

The Maruti Baleno was twice-borrowed, the police have found. The owner, Lokesh, had loaned it to Ashutosh, who loaned it to his friends Amit and Deepak Khanna.

The Khannas were inside the car when the horrific events took place. The others in the car were Manoj Mittal, a local BJP leader who owns a ration shop, Krishan, who works at the Spanish Cultural Centre in Connaught Place and Mithun, who works as a hair dresser.

The police came to know that the nude body of a woman was found in Jonti village — 13 km from the accident site — while they were investigating Anjali Singh’s abandoned scooty.
 
The FIR, which was filed at 5 am, says the police tried to trace the owner from the car’s number plate. Lokesh told them that he had loaned the car to Ashutosh, who told the police bout the Khannas. The two, he said, took the car from him in the evening.

Ashutosh immediately called Deepak and Amit Khanna, who told the police that they were drunk when they hit the woman. Deepak Khanna was driving and Manoj Mittal was sitting beside him.

Deepak Khanna said they found the woman’s body was stuck under the car when they stopped near Jonti village. They abandoned the body there and drove back to Ashutosh’s house and left the car there.

The account of events in the FIR, though, differs from the account of an eye-witness.  

Deepak Dahiya, a local confectioner, told NDTV that he saw the accident and the woman getting stuck under the car. He shouted out, asking them to stop the car and when they did not, he gave chase on his two-wheeler.  He said he also called the Police Control Room and informed the police, who paid no attention.

“I told the PCR (Police Control Room) vans and pointed at the car, but they didn’t even try to catch it,” he told NDTV.

Mr Dahiya said he had called the police 20 times over 90 minutes. Within that time, the car took three U-turns to return to the spot repeatedly, with the body tangled in the undercarriage.

Anjali Singh’s family has alleged that she was sexually assaulted, a claim the police have denied.

Union Home Minister Amit Shah has ordered an investigation into the matter, which sent shock waves across the country on New Year.

The investigation has been handed to senior Delhi Police officer Shalini Singh and a report has to be submitted to the Union Home Ministry as soon as possible, sources said.

The men have been charged of culpable homicide not amounting to murder, causing death by negligence and criminal conspiracy. But fresh sections can be added depending on the postmortem report, the police said.