East Delhi carnage: I have not killed my father, says Rahul Matta

Rahul Matta, the reclusive ex-Merchant Navy officer, barely kept in touch with anyone. His social media profile also portrayed a different reality, as nobody suspected anything was amiss looking at his picture. 

An imposing figure, dressed in a sharp black suit with a sleek hairstyle. However, after the horror show, in which he killed his father and burnt several policemen in a suicide attempt, the mask finally came off and his metamorphosis was complete.

Clad in chains, with his hands wrapped in white plaster and a white paste smeared all over his face, Rahul made his way to the police station.  “I did not kill my father. I had nothing to do with it. My parents had abandoned my wife and two children,” he said while he was being escorted by the police. When asked as to why he set the house on fire he said: “The police barged into the room.”

Rahul Matta was produced in court on Monday where he was sent to 14-day judicial custody and has completely denied his involvement in the horrific incident. The police were expecting, that after Rahul went berserk, he would put up a fight during the interrogation but they were stunned. 

“He was really calm about it all. He kept denying that he killed his father and said that all of this was his parent’s fault. He never owned up to anything. Rahul is a very intelligent person and well educated. We have found that the murder was a result of intense hatred towards his father. He had targeted anyone who tried to help Ravinder Matta,” said Deputy Commissioner of Police (East), Omvir Singh.  

The police had earlier suspected that he was mentally unstable but looking at the way he conducted himself, it soon transpired that he was in complete control of himself and the murder was a result of hatred towards his father. “Rahul had married a woman in Haridwar last year and had announced the marriage in September on social media. But his parents were not happy with the decision. He had come to the society once and had an argument with them,” Omvir added.

Rahul, a pass out of Bal Bharti Public school in Delhi, had joined the Merchant Navy in 2004 and was posted in Canada. However, he soon ran into trouble as he was dismissed from the force in 2008 due to indiscipline. His father, however, managed to help him get back on his feet, as he soon became an investment banker and travelled to New York. He had also spent around nine years in the shipping industry, before he called it quits.

He was trained to sail the oceans but with his arrest, he will face the court of law, which is his first love, as the police have told this newspaper that Rahul took a keen interest in studying law and had studied the major convictions and acquittals on a national and international level. Rahul, a staunch advocate of abolishing the death penalty, used to vent his ire at the Indian judicial system and the police. 

“He hates the prosecution and is completely in awe of criminal defense lawyers and respects them. He has demonstrated a keen interest in crime and law. He really has a crime-oriented mind,” Omvir added.