New Delhi: Three people have been arrested and a minor has been detained after a 23-year-old photographer Ankit Saxena was killed allegedly by the family of his Muslim girlfriend in west Delhi. Ankit was attacked on a street near his home on Thursday night and his throat was slashed, the police said.
They have arrested the mother, father and uncle of Ankit’s girlfriend and have detained her 16-year-old brother, who too was allegedly involved in the murder.
Ankit was dating the 20-year-old second-year college student, for the past three years. The police said her family was opposed to the relationship because Ankit was a Hindu.
At around 9 pm on Thursday, he was attacked and beaten and then was slashed with a knife. The road was full of blood where he collapsed. Ankit’s mother reportedly ran out of her home when she was told that he had been attacked and told the police that she saw her son being beaten and stabbed by his girlfriend’s family.
The young woman has said Ankit and she planned to get married soon. “I was going to meet him and then someone told me he had been stabbed with a knife. We were going to marry. He called me and told me he wanted to marry me, so we were meeting,” she told reporters.
The two began dating when they were neighbours a few years ago. They continued the relationship even after her family moved away.
“During the investigation, we found that they caught and stabbed Ankit in the neck. The woman’s family was against their relationship as they belonged to different communities and had warned Ankit against associating with her,” senior police officer Vijay Kumar said.
There is heavy police deployment in Raghubir Nagar, the area where Ankit was killed. Police said the stepped-up security is a precautionary measure.