4 min readNew DelhiApr 24, 2026 06:21 AM IST
The investigation into the rape and murder of an IRS officer’s 22-year-old daughter in Southeast Delhi on Wednesday has found that Rahul Meena (23), the accused who has since been arrested, first knocked on the door of the rooftop room where she was studying, claiming that her father had sent something for her, said sources.
When the woman, an IIT graduate who was preparing for the civil services exam, did not open the door, he broke in, after entering the adjoining bathroom from the top, scaling the wall with the help of water pipes and removing two fibre sheets from the roof, according to sources.
“He started knocking on her door, she asked who was outside… He replied that he was back from his village and her father had sent something for her. She asked him to keep it outside the door, saying she would pick it up later. He waited for her, but she did not come out,” said a source involved in the investigation.
After waiting for about five minutes, he decided to scale the wall with the help of water pipes and make his way to the roof. “After removing two fibre sheets from the roof, he entered the bathroom, from which he then entered her room… He demanded some money from her. She told him to take it from her father and started making a call to her father, but he snatched her phone and threw it away,” said the source.
Meena told his interrogators that the woman then screamed, and he tried to gag her mouth, said sources. “When she resisted, he struck her with a table lamp and water bottle, knocking her unconscious before allegedly raping her. She bit him and he strangled her with a cellphone charging cable,” said the source.
Meena then dragged the woman by the hair down a flight of stairs to another room on the third floor where a locker was kept, and tried to open the biometric lock using her fingerprint, but it did not open. “There was blood on her finger, so it was denying access. After three failed attempts, the locker asked for a password… He then opened the digital locker with the help of a screwdriver,” said the source.
Meena proceeded to steal Rs 2.5 lakh cash from the locker, and changed his blood-stained clothes, taking some clothes from the 22-year-old’s brother’s almirah. “He continued to strangle the woman downstairs too, took her iPhone, and fled through the building’s front gate with a backpack. But before leaving, he left his shoes in the house and wore his old slippers,” said sources.
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“Pretending to be on a phone call as he exited, he entered a nearby park, dumped the iPhone, and took a private cab to Palam railway station at around 8.13 am, but he missed his train to Rewari. He then took an auto-rickshaw to a hotel in Dwarka. After check-in, he ordered a T-shirt from a quick commerce app, and then ordered chicken curry with rotis,” said sources.
Meena was arrested from the hotel in Dwarka, where he had booked a room for Rs 2,000. He told police that while the room rental was Rs 1,500, the hotel staff took Rs 500 more because he did not have any identification documents.
