The 21-year-old domestic help Neeraj Saki, who had allegedly strangled the 81-year-old former journalist to death, made a chilling confession before a city court in Saket on Wednesday. He confessed that he had raped Rekha Duggal (81) before setting her on fire. Duggal had fainted during the horrendous assault, the help told a city court.
Neeraj was produced before the court for his remand. The investigating officer (IO) sought his remand after it was found during the investigation that the accused had changed his clothes after committing the crime.
There was a buzz in the court as the accused went on to narrate the gory crime. He also narrated the entire sequence of events to the judge saying he first raped the woman and later set her ablaze to destroy the evidence. Neeraj, who was working as a domestic help at Duggal’s house, told the court that he had taken away the valuables from her house after murdering her. During the hearing, police sought custodial interrogation of Neeraj, a resident of Madhubani in Bihar, saying they have to recover the articles which were missing from the house of the victim. Metropolitan Magistrate (MM) Anu Aggarwal allowed the contentions of the IO and sent Neeraj to four-day police custody.
Rekha Duggal, one of the leading woman journalists of her time, was residing on the ground floor of her house in Greater Kailash -II area in South-East Delhi. Duggal’s husband KK Duggal was Editor of the United News of India (UNI) and had died in 2005. According to the police, in order to paint the incident as death due to fire, the accused told one of the neighbours that Rekha Duggal had gone out to park for a walk but had not returned.
Police said said Neeraj was present in the house and pretended to be calm initially. However, he broke down when he was questioned. “We have to recover the clothes that the accused was wearing at the time of the murder and also he had changed his clothes to avoid being detected as the clothes that he wore during the crime had smell of kerosene,” said an official.
“The post-mortem of Duggal would be conducted on Thursday only when Anu luthra, the second daughter of Rekha Duggal, arrives from the United States. As of now Neeraj is the prime accused in the case. Further investigations are underway,” said an officer privy to the investigation.