A life wasted: Clip captures final moments

NEW DELHI: If someone had mediated,

Ankit Saxena

wouldn’t have perhaps met such a gory end. Eyewitnesses said after the initial scuffle, the girl’s parents had started going away when Saxena’s mother had come in to resolve the dispute. A second round of argument began after that, they said.

“We had known Saxena for a long time, but did not intervene in the fight presuming that it was between two families. A PCR call had been made by the family members and both were waiting for police to arrive when the girl’s uncle suddenly pounced on Saxena and slit his throat from behind,” said

Kuldeep Rana

, who runs a garage near the spot.

CCTV

footage capturing the moments before Saxena was murdered was recovered from a shop near the spot. The five-minute footage shows Ankit, wearing a black pullover and slippers, frantically calling up someone after the scuffle, probably friends. As he walks out of the frame, he is attacked. Passersby are seen running to the scene to check.

Investigation revealed that initially, the girl’s family members had not carried the knife with them. But during the argument, her mother rushed back home, took the knife from the storeroom and borrowed a scooter from a neighbour, saying that the girl had met with an accident due to which she had to rush back.

“During the argument, the girl’s father hit him several times, but he did not retaliate except for pushing him away a few times,” said Pawan Kumar, who works at a tea stall nearby.

A crowd gathered around them and some started clicking photographs even as Ankit’s mother kept crying for help. After about 10 minutes, an e-rickshaw driver agreed to ferry them to a nearby hospital.

“Ankit kept asking them to call the police, to which the girl’s father agreed but cooked up a story about Ankit being caught red-handed for trying to abduct his daughter. They also blamed his mother for keeping the girl confined at their house and hit her,” said Pawan.

Ankit’s mother had to be re-admitted to a government hospital on Saturday after she complained of breathlessness. She has suffered a fracture on her ribs and is suffering from high diabetes due to the stress.

His father too has been bed-ridden since Sunday as he suffers from a heart ailment and had two attacks in the past three years. “I hope nobody gets to light his son’s pyre. I still believe he didn’t have any affair. The last time we spoke, he had asked me to look for a bride,” he said.