A girl from Manipur was strangulated and her body burnt at her home in Munirka in South Delhi. Police officers said she was murdered on Saturday after she resisted the advances of her neighbour.

Ramchanphy Hongray (19) was attacked by Pushpam Kumar Sinha (29), who resided in the second floor of the same building — house number A-80. The youth is pursuing his PhD in Wave Mechanics from IIT, Delhi.

Police officers said Hongray had come to the Capital a month ago for vacations. She was staying with her sister.

Ever since she came, Sinha had been making advances at her. To make sure that she was safe, her sister called on her cellphone at 5 pm everyday.

“Her sister works in Qba Restaurant in Connaught Place and was there on Saturday,” said a senior police officer. “She got no response to the 5 pm call. Gripped by panic, she called her cousin. Visiting the house, he discovered the girl’s body in the kitchen.” The whole of her torso bore burns.

He immediately called the police, who took the body to AIIMS for postmortem.

“It looked like the girl was cooking. So we thought an accidental death was possible,” said the officer. But the postmortem established that she had died due to strangulation. “We registered a murder case and found out about Sinha during our inquiries,” he said. “We took him into custody and on sustained interrogation, he confessed to the crime.”

According to the police, Sinha said he had assumed that the girl was interested in him as she returned his smiles. On Saturday evening, he visited her and made sexual advances, which she resisted. Sinha told the police that Ramchanphy threatened to lodge a complaint with the police against him. Fearing arrest, he strangulated her. Then to make the death look like an accident, he thrust her body onto the stove. Sinha has been booked for murder at Vasant Vihar police station. The Deputy Commissioner of Police (South) HGS Dhaliwal said: “He will be produced in court tomorrow.”

... contd.