“I Felt So Hopeless That I Went Home”: Friend Recounts the incident
Staff Reporter / AMN
Union Home Ministry has asked a senior police officer to look into the lapses on part of the Delhi police in horrific incident that took place on New Year, when the city was under a security blanket.
The 20-year-old, breadwinner for a family, was cremated today amid horror and protests of a shocked city.
The woman died after she was dragged by a car for nearly seven kilometres in Sultanpuri area. The victim was not alone on the scooty when the incident occurred.
The Delhi Police has expedited the probe into the horrific incident which has triggered massive outrage across the national capital. Shalini Singh, special commissioner of police, led a team to Janauti village.
Meanwhile, Anjali Singh’s friend, who accompanied her to the New Year party, alleged that the accused knew that Anjali was being dragged, but they kept driving the car. Recalling the horrific incident, she said that initially she was riding the two-wheeler but Anjali threatened to jump from the vehicle if she was not allowed to ride.
The men who dragged “knew she was stuck under,” the victim’s friend told media persons today. Nidhi, who accompanied Anjali Singh to a New Year Party, was riding pillion in the same scooty, the police have found. Nidhi, who apparently had a fight with Anjali, had fallen when the car allegedly hit the scooty and after seeing Anjali being dragged under the car, went home in shock.
“The Baleno hit us head on. I fell to one side and she fell towards the front,” Nidhi told reporters.
“My friend got stuck under the car. The men knew that a girl had rolled under their car. They deliberately ran over her. They knew. The girl was stuck under the car and she was screaming. I felt so hopeless that I went home,” she told reporters this evening as her friend’s body was cremated.
“I went home and didn’t tell anything to anyone. I had panicked. I cried a lot. They drove forward and back twice. Forward and back. Twice. She was on her back. Probably got stuck in something. So they went forward and back. Then they just drove off, dragging her under the car,” Nidhi added, recalling the traumatic event in vivid detail.
Anjali’s leg had got stuck in the axle.
The five men in the car, who are under arrest, have told the police that they had panicked after hitting the scooty and had no idea that the woman was stuck in the undercarriage. They said they were drunk, having polished off two bottles of alcohol on way back from Haryana’s Murthal. Also, the music in the car was loud and they heard nothing, they said.
The men claimed that they saw the body when they were near the Jonti village. While taking a U-turn, they saw the woman’s arm. Then they stopped the car and leaving the body there, drove off. They returned the car, borrowed from one Ashutosh, and went home.
The Delhi Police said the Kanjhawala Police Station received a distress call at around 3.20 pm about a body been dragged by a grey Maruti Baleno car heading to Qutubgarh. While the investigation was on, another caller informed about the body lying on the Kanjhawala main road at 4.11 am. The police team rushed to the spot where they found the body lying on the road. All the five people have been arrested and have been booked for culpable homicide not amounting to murder, causing death due to negligence and rash driving. They were produced before court which sent them to three-day custody.