16-yr-old maid killed for asking her salary, one held

New Delhi: Delhi Police on Sunday said they have arrested one of the four persons who killed a 16-year-old girl, working as a maid in outer Delhi, and threw her body into a drain after chopping it into three parts.

Cops said the accused persons, including a woman, had brought the girl from Jharkhand to Delhi a few years ago and made her work as a domestic help. The accused used to take away her earnings and murdered her when she demanded that they give them back to her.

Additional Deputy Commissioner of Police (Outer) Rajender Singh Sagar on Sunday said that on May 4, a PCR call was received at Mianwali Nagar police station about a chopped up dead body packed in a bag lying in C- Block near Jwalapuri, Rao Vihar.

A police team, led by the Inspector Special Staff, reached the spot and found the deceased to be a girl around 16 years old.

"All the CCTV footages were analysed and tenants of more than 200 houses near the place of incident were questioned. We found that a girl had gone missing and later she was identified," police said.

During the probe, cops found that a tenant, identified as Manjeet Karketa, living in the area had been missing since the girl's body was found.

After finding out that he was a native of Gumla district of Jharkhand, a police team went there to find Karketa, but to no avail. Later, they were tipped that Karketa was in outer Delhi itself and he was soon nabbed.

During interrogation, Karketa told cops that he and his associates would bring the young, poor and unsuspecting girls from Jharkhand to Delhi, with false promises of employment and good salary.

The victim, who belonged to Malgo village near Ranchi, was one such girl, and forced to work as a maid. However, the accused used to collect her salary to keep her in their control.

After working as a maid for over a year, the girl then asked the accused to give her the money, so that she could return to her home in Jharkhand.

The accused tried to pacify her, but she was adamant. Eventually, Karketa and his associates decided to kill and then mercilessly chopped off her body to dispose it off.

Police said that as the area where the accused lived was congested, they wait till late night to go outside to dump off the girl's chopped up body.

"They waited till 2 to 3 am and then travelled three to four kilometres away and threw the body into a drain," said a police officer.