New Delhi, 23 April

A Delhi court on Thursday sent Rahul Meena, the 19-year-old domestic help accused of killing a senior IRS officer's daughter at her upscale southeast Delhi residence, to four days of police custody.

Chief Judicial Magistrate Deepika Thakaran allowed the Delhi Police's plea seeking four days of custodial interrogation of the accused.

A 22-year-old IIT graduate and the daughter of a senior Indian Revenue Service (IRS) officer was allegedly raped and killed at her Kailash Hills residence by Meena, their former house help, on Wednesday morning, hours after the accused and his associates allegedly sexually assaulted another woman in Rajasthan's Alwar.

The probe in the rape and murder of a 22-year-old in south Delhi suggests that the accused sneaked into the Kailash Hills apartment and headed straight to the rooftop study where he allegedly assaulted the daughter of his former employer and then dragged her blood-soaked body downstairs, police sources said on Thursday.

Piecing together the chilling details of the sexual assault and murder, police officials said Rahul Meena is a man without remorse. He is showing a few signs of contrition and has changed his statement repeatedly.

According to police sources, the 19-year-old accused headed straight to the rooftop study after sneaking into the house using a spare key, where he attacked the woman, the daughter of a senior Indian Revenue Service (IRS) officer preparing for her civil services examination, raped her, and dragged her blood-soaked body downstairs.

He allegedly strangled the victim with a mobile phone charging cable before hitting her with a heavy object, rendering her unconscious.

“The investigation suggests that the accused raped the victim while she was still unconscious. He then dragged her down the stairs to another room where a locker was kept, and attempted to open the biometric lock using her fingerprint, but it did not open,” a police source said.

He then broke the locker open using a screwdriver, stole cash and jewellery, changed his blood-stained clothes and slippers and fled the scene, about 30 minutes before the victims’ parents returned home.

According to police, the accused was inside the house for about 40 minutes.

CCTV footage and eyewitness accounts confirmed that Rahul entered the colony around 6.30am, sneaked into the house at 6.49am, and left at 7.20am.

The incident came to light when the victim's parents returned home and found her lying in a pool of blood, with her clothes torn, and her belongings scattered all around.

The accused, who worked as a domestic help in the house for about eight months before he was fired around a month ago, knew about the morning routine of the victim's parents, who were not at home at the time of the incident, police said.

The victim, an engineering graduate from IIT-Delhi, was preparing for her civil services examination.

“Initially, Rahul told police that he took an ambulance from Alwar to Delhi. But later he changed his statement and said he booked a car for Rs 5,000 and left without paying the driver after reaching Delhi.

“Our teams are working to ascertain the exact chain of events, both in Rajasthan and Delhi. We are also scanning the trail of CCTV footage from the crime scene to the hotel in Dwarka from where Rahul was arrested,” the source said.

The 19-year-old appears to be a serial offender who allegedly raped a woman in Rajasthan’s Alwar hours before the crime in Delhi, officials said.

“A special team has been formed to probe the rape charge against Rahul Meena here. We have detained over half a dozen people for questioning,” Alwar SP Sudhir Chaudhary said on Thursday.

According to the officer, Rahul was known to the victim and played online Ludo with her husband.