Faridabad teacher stabbed 27 times by stalker she'd already reported

Sandhya Sharma had complained to police about her stalker. On Monday, he waited outside her school and stabbed her more than 27 times.

Sandhya Sharma, a 29-year-old English teacher at Faridabad’s Saraswati Senior Secondary School was stabbed more than 27 times outside her school on Monday, August 3, by a stalker, Amit, who had been harassing her for two years. She had come out of the classroom after being told that Vicky, her husband, had come for her. Police said that the murder was planned nearly two months in advance. The suspect was arrested within two hours.

The attack

Police said that Amit reached the school in Sikrona village around 9.30 am. CCTV footage shows the accused, 21-year-old Amit of Kot village, waiting at the entrance before grabbing Sharma by the hair as she stepped out. A colleague, Tejpal, tried to intervene and was driven back at knifepoint. Police said the blade bent partway through the assault; Amit kept stabbing anyway. He fled on a motorcycle with no number plate, but was later caught and brought to police custody within two hours.The weapon has been recovered, police said. 

A complaint

Sandhya and Amit first crossed paths at a school in Kot village, in a building owned by his family. What followed, police say, was a pattern familiar from other stalking cases: he pursued her, she said no and her refusal became something he could not let go of. She changed schools. She changed her address. She filed a police complaint, after which he apologised, but investigators say he kept the resentment alive underneath. He reportedly weighed attacking her on her commute first, then judged the school gate safer for himself.

"If the police had acted, she'd be alive"

That's the argument Sandhya’s husband, Vicky Gurjar, has made publicly since her death. The family says the harassment stretched back roughly two years and included an earlier assault and abduction attempt this year, one that never became a formal case after Amit's family promised he would stay away. 

Sandhya Sharma was a resident of Dabua area and Vikas Gurjar (Vicky) from Firozpur village and had a love marriage.

Where the case stands

A murder case is registered at the Sector 58 police station on Gurjar's complaint. Amit,  the youngest of three brothers, earned his living rearing buffaloes and selling milk. He was remanded to three days' police custody on Tuesday. Police are still trying to recover his motorcycle and clothing.

Recently, In June, a similar incident happened when, Dimple was stabbed to death at her desk by an ex-boyfriend in Punjab after she ended their relationship- in front of her colleagues who tried but failed to stop him. Different city, different man but same refusal to hear "no."

In both cases, a woman's choice: to leave/ to refuse or to move on was treated as a provocation rather than her right. Sandhya complained to police, changed jobs, changed her address and Dimple simply ended a relationship. 

This is one of the reasons why so many women describe feeling unsafe not just around strangers, but around men they already know. NCRB's latest data recorded nearly 9,900 stalking cases in 2024, and barely one in four cases of crimes against women ends in conviction- numbers that's likely an undercount since most women never file a complaint at all.

Sandhya did everything the system tells women to do but it still wasn't enough.

(With inputs from PTI)