MAHENDERGARH: A scream in the middle of the night woke the nine-year-old up. Anjali (name changed) ran to the door but found it locked from outside.
The scream was so loud it had startled her because it had come from the other side of the wall, the adjoining bedroom of her parents. Her mother Sunita (32) had been hacked with a machete, allegedly by her grandfather Rao Rai Singh.
“My grandmother came to the room and put me back to sleep. She said the noise was coming from somewhere in the neighbourhood and there was nothing to worry about,” said the girl, who had gone back to sleep and was bolted up in the room all of Tuesday night when four murders were committed in the Rajendra Park house — Sunita and second-floor tenants Krishan and Anamika Tiwari and their elder daughter, also a nine-year-old. The younger daughter (6) sustained injuries too but survived.
Now at Sunita’s family home in Mahendergarh, Anjali’s next memory is of a cop unlocking the door. The house swarmed with police personnel. The sight confused her.
“I sleep with my grandparents in the same room, but on Tuesday night, my grandfather did not sleep with us,” she told this correspondent on Wednesday. “I was only able to get out of the room after the police opened the door and took me to a neighbour’s house. My father was not at home that night,” said Anjali, who studies in Class 6 at a school in New Palam Vihar and is yet to comprehend the events that have happened around her since Tuesday night.
Sunita’s elder brother Ashok Kumar (35) said he was horrified to see the condition of his sister’s face. “Not even the Taliban would be so brutal. There were at least seven deep cuts on her face. It is a barbaric act,” he said, alleging Singh wanted to grab her property and had concocted the story of an extra-marital affair between Sunita and Krishan.
