Following Rahul Meena's arrest hours after the Wednesday morning crime, Delhi Police detailed how the former domestic help scaled water pipes, broke into the rooftop room, raped and strangled the 22-year-old IIT graduate and UPSC aspirant in Kailash Hills to rob her family's biometric locker amid his massive gambling debts. AIIMS postmortem confirmed death by strangulation post-assault. (Update to April 22 coverage)
Rahul Meena, 23, a Rajasthan University graduate from Rajgarh in Alwar, entered the southeast Delhi home around 6:30 am Wednesday using a smart key left near the shoe rack—after the victim's parents had left for the gym. Posing as sent by her father, he knocked on her rooftop study room door. When she refused entry, he scaled water pipes, removed fibre sheets from the roof, and accessed via the bathroom, sources said.
Demanding money as she reached for her phone, Meena snatched it, gagged her screams, knocked her unconscious with a table lamp and water bottle, raped her, then strangled her using a cellphone charging cable.
He dragged her bloodied body by the hair to the third-floor biometric locker. Her fingerprint failed; using a screwdriver, he pried it open, stealing Rs 2-2.5 lakh cash, clothes from her brother's cupboard, and her iPhone. Meena changed out of his blood-stained clothes, left his shoes behind, and fled around 7:20 am while pretending to be on a phone call. He dumped the iPhone in a nearby park, cabbed to Palam railway station (missing the train), then auto to a Dwarka hotel.
CCTV and technical surveillance led to his arrest at the hotel by 8 pm Wednesday. Meena had worked 18 months as domestic help but was fired six weeks prior over Rs 7 lakh losses from online teen patti gambling. The night before (Tuesday), he had assaulted a woman in Alwar after hiding on Kali Pahari hill.
AIIMS postmortem revealed death by strangulation after sexual assault, with multiple injuries including fractured thyroid cartilage. Police recovered most stolen cash; Meena had spent Rs 7,000.
