A 19-year-old Indian woman was stabbed to death at a house in South London’s Croydon on Sunday. The woman had recently arrived in the UK. The police arrested a 23-year-old man who was found at the scene, the Times of India said in a report. He was arrested on suspicion of her murder. He was briefly taken to a hospital as he suffered a minor head injury.
Police were called to the location on Sunday afternoon (4:10pm GMT). The house where the murder happened is in Ash Tree Way, a residential street in Croydon. The house is believed to be rented out, the Times of India report said.
The medics arrived at the scene within five minutes followed by paramedics, two ambulances and a London air ambulance. “There was a police helicopter and armed police officers. It was chaos. A guy ran out of the house covered in blood. Police arrested him and he was bandaged by paramedics and then taken off. The police were then talking to a girl from the house and she was saying she didn’t hear anything because she had her headphones on and was speaking to her family in India,” a family, who is a neighbour, told UK-based newspaper the Evening Standard.
Neighbours told the newspaper that there was “pandemonium” and cops were all over the area and the police had to kick the door open of the house where the murder happened.
“There was pandemonium, there were police everywhere. They kicked the door open of the house where it happened,” the other neighbour told the news outlet.
The police in a statement said that they are working to trace and inform the woman’s family and that the man and woman knew each other.
“The man and woman were known to each other. At this stage, nobody else is sought in connection with the murder investigation,” a Metropolitan police spokesperson said, according to the Times of India. Forensic officers were spotted at the house on Monday and were collecting evidence.