Neha Ahlawat murder case: 15 years on, Chandigarh court convicts taxi driver

A local court has convicted taxi driver Monu Kumar, a resident of Shahpur Colony, Sector-38 West, Chandigarh, in a 15-year-old murder case of Neha Ahlawat. The court will pronounce the quantum of the sentence tomorrow.

The police had registered a case against an unknown person after the blood-stained body of the 21-year-old was found on July 30, 2010, in the forest area of Sector-38, Chandigarh. In a complaint filed with the police, the girl's father stated that on July 30, 2010, around 6 pm, Neha left their house on her scooter for Sector-15 to attend English-speaking classes. When she did not return by 9 pm, he called Neha’s friend, but she told him that Neha had not come to her house that day.

Later, another friend told him that Neha came to her house around 7.30 pm and left around 7.45 pm. Thereafter, they all searched for Neha but she could not be located. In the meantime, he received a call from her friend that Neha’s scooter, stained with blood, was parked near a taxi stand in Sector 38 West. When they reached Karan Taxi Stand, they found that on the other side of the road, the half-naked body of Neha was lying in a pool of blood in the bushes.

She was rushed to the PGI where a doctor declared her brought dead. The police failed to find the culprit for years and finally closed the investigation in 2020.

The case was solved when the accused was arrested in another murder and rape case of a woman that took place in 2022 in the same area.

In that case too, the body of the victim woman, Mandeep, was found in the forest area. The police claimed that the accused had raped the woman before killing her.

During the investigation of that case, the police collected DNA samples of suspected persons from the area who had criminal record. During the process, the DNA sample of accused Monu matched with the samples collected from the deceased.

The police arrested the accused and later claimed that the accused had confessed to have murdered Neha. His DNA had sample had also matched with samples collected from Neha’s body.