New Delhi, Feb 16: An assailant plunged a knife into the heart of a 26-year-old married woman in Karol Bagh around 7.30pm on Valentine's Day, killing her almost instantly.
The victim, Simranjeet Kaur, worked as human resources manager for a Noida MNC. She was about to enter her cousin's house when the killer, who was following her, waylaid and stabbed her with a new double-edged knife which he left behind.
Video footage from CCTV cameras installed in nearby houses showed a young man in a dark jeans and white jacket trail the woman, stab her and scamper off in a flash. Investigators said the murder could have resulted from personal enmity or could be the doing of an admirer she did not know.
A robbery is being ruled out because the assailant did not touch the victim's purse, mobile phone and laptop, and rarely do robbers use new knives. Her husband hasn't been given a clean chit yet. "We are probing all angles. Teams have been formed to crack the case," Sandeep Goyal, joint CP (central range) said.
Simranjeet lived with her husband of two years at Nanakpura in south Delhi. Her husband, Manveet Singh, works for IT major HCL, police said. Her parents live in Karol Bagh's West Extension and her cousin resides in a house two blocks away.
Killer ran away leaving behind knife, valuables
The victim's cousin had given birth a week ago and returned home from hospital on Friday. Simranjeet was visiting her and had left her Noida office around 6.30pm. She boarded the Metro and spoke to her husband 15 minutes before the train pulled up at Karol Bagh.
Her cousin's house is a 10-minute walk from the station and Simranjeet left the station between 7.15pm and 7.20pm. It's not clear where the killer began stalking her, for the metro station's CCTV didn't catch him. But two close-circuit cameras mounted on houses near the crime scene show her casually walk down the lane leading up to her destination .
It's here that the assailant, seemingly in his twenties, shows up for the first time. Around 7.35pm, both are visible in the footage.
The man furtively looks behind to check if someone else is in the lane. Just about that time, a scooterist zips past and takes a u-turn. He's among the suspects. The killer strikes between 7.36pm and 7.37pm and the victim cries out for help. Moments later, relatives rush out. "I heard her scream 'chor chor'. She lay on the road drenched in blood.
The knife, her laptop, phone and wallet were strewn around. We raised an alarm, picked her up and rushed to Ganga Ram hospital where doctors declared her dead," Prabhjot Singh, the victim's uncle, said.
The view from another camera showed the same suspect running away. Policemen rushed to the spot and cordoned off the area. The murder weapon was seized and forensic teams lifted fingerprints . The body was sent for postmortem , which was conducted on Saturday and handed over to the family. Simranjeet's husband and family took her body to their hometown in Jalandhar on Saturday where her last rites were performed.
Unanswered questions
She was stabbed in the heart on Valentine's Day. Was this handiwork of a secret admirer? Was it a failed robbery attempt? Simran screamed 'chor chor', indicating she didn't know the attacker If she was killed during a robbery bid, why didn't the man take her laptop, phone and wallet? Nobody knew about her plan to visit the cousin's house other than the husband, whom she had called from Metro. How could an outsider manage to follow her? Was it a case of mistaken identity?
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