Had the police sheltered Raman and his “wife” on the night of December 22, he would have been spared the horror and trauma he underwent soon after, his family said on Friday. The woman’s family members accosted the couple on the road, took them away from Rajouri Garden to Sagarpur and thrashed him mercilessly and chopped off his private parts.
Neena, the 21-year-old’s mother, was inconsolable at her residence in a narrow lane of Transit Camp in Raghubir Nagar. “It’s as bad as dying,” she said of his plight.
Run-up to attack
Recalling the run-up to the attack, Ms. Neena said Raman had left the house on December 11 after which they didn’t hear from him. Reasoning that he must have gone away with his girlfriend, the family didn’t report him as missing, she said.
On the night of December 22, Raman’s brother Aakash received a call stating that his brother has been beaten up and is lying near a drain in Sagarpur. Aakash reached the spot and found his brother semi-conscious and bleeding from several places. He brought him home to Tagore Garden where Raman showed that his private parts had also been chopped off.
“We immediately took him to Deen Dayal Upadhyay Hospital. They referred him to AIIMS Trauma Centre where he is undergoing treatment,” Raman’s younger brother Mohit said.
Raman told the family that he had gone to Rajasthan with the woman and the two got married in a court. On December 22 evening, the couple returned and went to Rajouri Garden police station seeking help. “They told the officials that their lives are under threat from by the woman’s family but the police told them not to worry and turned them away,” Ms. Neena said, adding that they have heard that the woman’s family was informed about the couple’s presence in the police station by the officers.
After the couple left the police station, they were stopped by the woman’s family and forcibly taken to Sagarpur where Raman was thrashed and his private parts chopped “to teach him a lesson”.
The family said the couple had met on Facebook and had eloped earlier in May this year also but were caught by Raman’s family before they left Delhi. “We handed the girl over to her parents, so the matter didn’t escalate,” the mother said. Ms. Neena believed the woman’s parents were against the alliance because “they are rich and we are poor”.
Police have arrested two women, including the grandmother and aunt of Raman’s girlfriend, in connection with the case and are looking for the other family members who are absconding.
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