Delhi court convicts man for murdering DU student

A Delhi court has convicted a man for abducting and murdering a 21-year-old Delhi University student and destroying evidence.

Additional Sessions Judge Swati Gupta was hearing a case against Ishtiaque Ali, accused of kidnapping and murdering Ayush Nautiyal, a third-year student of Ram Lal Anand College, in 2018. In an order dated May 30, the court said, "Detailed analysis of the oral and documentary evidence on record, it can safely be concluded that prosecution has successfully proved the chain of circumstances beyond reasonable doubt in the present case."

According to the prosecution, Ayush left home on March 22, 2018, stating that he was going to attend a college fest. Later that evening, Dinesh Chandra received WhatsApp messages from his son Ayush's phone number, including a photograph showing him blindfolded with his hands and legs tied.

The messages demanded a ransom of Rs 50 lakh and warned the family against informing the police or relatives.

The prosecution alleged that further ransom messages and calls were made between March 22 and March 27, directing the victim's father to deliver money at various locations in Delhi, including Uttam Nagar and Munirka. However, nobody arrived to collect the ransom.

On March 28, 2018, a decomposed body wrapped in green polythene was recovered from a drain near Metro View Apartment in Dwarka Sector-13. Ayush's father identified the body and personal belongings found nearby.

The postmortem report stated that the cause of death was head injury sufficient to cause death in the ordinary course of nature.

"The said phone of the deceased, from which ransom messages were sent was recovered at the instance of the accused, from the house of the accused. In view of the legal position discussed above, this is sufficient to prove the charge of IPC Section 364A against the accused," the court said.

The prosecution said the accused had met the victim through Tinder dating app and had later taken him to a rented room in Rama Park, Uttam Nagar, where the murder was committed.

The court noted that the police recovered the victim's mobile phone, the alleged murder weapon, burnt remnants of the victim's laptop and other incriminating articles at the instance of the accused.

"Hammer (weapon of offence) was recovered from the scene of crime at the instance of the accused and the said hammer was found to have blood which matched with DNA of the deceased," it said.

The court also relied upon forensic evidence, call detail records, WhatsApp chats, CCTV footage and recoveries made during investigation.

It rejected the defence argument that the case was based merely on presumptions and held that the prosecution had established the circumstances beyond reasonable doubt.

Convicting the accused, the court listed the matter for June 24 for hearing on the quantum of sentence.