Family seeks death sentence for Komal's killers

“She was extremely good-natured, well-mannered, a decent girl and lived happily in the locality,” said a burqa-clad woman of northeast Delhi’s Sunder Nagri locality where a pall of gloom descended on Thursday after the murder of a 22-year-old woman.

The victim Komal was strangulated to death by her acquaintance Asif and his friend Zubair in a car on March 12. The cops cracked the case seven days after her body was found floating in the Najafgarh drain in Dwarka’s Chhawla area.

Komal had recently started working at a call centre in Nirman Vihar. Before that, she had served as a civil defence volunteer for eight years.

“Life for a life. That is what we want. The accused should be hanged to death immediately,” Komal’s grandmother Bimla minced no words to express her frustration. Sentiments of Komal’s mother Anita, who stayed separately in Chandigarh, were no different. “How could they do it?

Komal’s grandmother Bimla further said that they were not aware of their daughter’s friendship with any of the accused. “We never saw her with anyone,” she remarked.

On March 12, when Komal did not return home from work, the grandmother said they started panicking and kept calling her phone which remained unanswerable. Ultimately, they approached the police and lodged a missing complaint.

Komal’s another relative shared his frustration over cops not disclosing the motive behind the murder and not taking the matter seriously when she went missing. “When we lodged a missing complaint, the police did not act efficiently. Now they are saying that they will ensure justice,” Komal’s uncle said.

Komal’s neighbour was equally shaken by the heinous crime and demanded death penalty for the accused. “We want similar treatment for the accused as was meted out to Komal. We want him to be hanged. That’s it,” the woman said.