A 24-year-old Delhi University student was arrested on Friday for allegedly strangling a woman to death after she “pressured” him into marriage. The victim’s body was found inside a hotel room in Old Delhi’s Lahori Gate area earlier this week.
The accused, identified as Abhishek Tiwari, is a resident of Shahdara and was arrested for the murder of a 25-year-old woman, who worked as an accountant in a private company in Chandani Chowk, news agency PTI reported.
During interrogation, Tiwari told investigators that he met the woman about two years ago through a mutual friend and the two gradually became close. He said that she had been pressuring him in recent months to marry her, which he claimed he did not want.
The woman, a resident of Maujpur in northeast Delhi, lived with her parents, grandmother and younger sister.
She was called to the hotel, and was strangled
The police said that the accused planned the murder “because of marriage pressure.” He called her to meet him at a hotel on Church Mission Road on March 11. After having physical relations with her, he allegedly strangled her to death with his hands and fled the spot, PTI quoted CPI(N)’s Raja Panthea as saying.
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The woman went to the hotel at noon on March 11 with Tiwari. Meanwhile, the accused was seen leaving the hotel once around 5pm after locking the room from outside.
The DCP said the accused was pursuing B.Com through Delhi University’s Open Education College and was working as an accountant in a shop in Chandni Chowk.
The matter came to light at 12:30 a.m. on the intervening night of Wednesday to Thursday, when a staff member reported to police that the room’s occupants were unresponsive despite repeated knocks on the door.
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After that, police forced the door open and found the woman lying on the bed, partially covered with a blanket, the official said. He added: “There was blood on the bed and clothes lying nearby.”
Meanwhile, the woman’s family also filed a missing person’s report with Jaffarabad police station after her phone was disconnected and she did not return home on Wednesday.
The accused, who has been booked under Section 103 (murder) of the Immigration Act, will be produced before the court and his custody will be sought for further questioning, police said.
