Woman, 20, shot dead in east Delhi, kin suspect ‘social media friend’
A 20-year-old woman was shot dead in east Delhi’s GTB Enclave on Monday night. Her family claimed she had gone to meet a man she had befriended on social media. Police said they have identified the suspect and efforts are under way to nab him.
They are also probing whether she may have been a witness in a murder case reported last year.
The victim was identified as Sayra Parveen, a resident of Kaudi Colony in Sunder Nagri. A PCR call to GTB Enclave police station around 9.55pm alerted cops about the incident. When police reached the spot, they found the woman’s body in a service lane near the MIG flats across Sunder Nagri.
“There were two bullet injuries on her body – on the left side of her head and below the back of her neck. We are awaiting the result of the postmortem report,” a senior police officer said. An empty shell was also found from the spot, he added.
Woman went to meet someone she befriended online, say kin; incident took place at dark spot
A case under BNS Section 103 (murder) was registered at GTB Enclave police station.
According to a police source, in CCTV footage taken from the area, Parveen could be walking with a man just minutes before the incident.
“Prima facie, the footage and local inquiry suggest the two knew each other and were on friendly terms. However, at one point, an argument seemed to break out between them. The footage showed the man chasing the woman briefly, and then she appeared to chase him back. It seemed normal at first – but then they moved into the service lane, where she was shot dead,” the source said.
Parveen used to live with her sister and brother. According to her family, she had gone to meet someone she had met through social media.
“She left in the evening, saying she was going to meet her friends. It was something she often did, so we didn’t think much of it at the time. When she didn’t return till 11pm, we started getting worried and began searching for her. The next thing we knew, police called and asked us to come identify her body,” her elder sister Shahida recalled.
Parveen wasn’t doing well emotionally since their mother died, she added. “We lost our mother to cancer just a month ago. Meeting her friends seemed to be her way of coping.”
Parveen, her cousin recalled, used to love making reels. “She had met someone online and was saying she would meet him that day.”
The victim’s body was found near a gated residential complex.
A security guard stationed at the complex said, “It gets so dark in that section that even we feel scared stepping out of the society gate at night.”
Rajneesh Kumar Pathak, general secretary, GTB Enclave MIG Flats RWA, acknowledged the area has long suffered from poor lighting and lack of surveillance. “We’ve repeatedly requested the authorities to repair the streetlights and install more CCTV cameras, or at least fix the existing ones, but nothing has been done. Barring the cameras installed by Delhi Police, the area is a dark spot,” he said.
Pathak, who discovered the body while he was out for a post-dinner walk, was the one to alert police. “I was terrified. I didn’t know if the person who had done this was still around. What if they attacked me too? Many residents walk in the area at night. If this situation isn’t addressed, we are just inviting more danger,” he said. Two schools are also located just a few metres from the spot where the body was discovered.
