The Mumbai police have finally cracked the Preeti Rathi acid attack case by arresting the accused Ankur Paliwal a hotel management graduate from Delhi. The accused Ankur had thrown acid on Preeti as he was jealous that she had managed to get employment while he is still jobless. The accused and the victim used to reside in the same society.
According to Himanshu Roy, Joint Commissioner of police, crime, “Ankur and Preeti Rathi were known to each other. Both of them used to reside in the same society in Delhi. Even as Preeti landed up a lucrative job but Ankur remained jobless. Ankur’s father used to taunt him that Preeti is so talented and being a girl she has become employed while he is yet to find one. Later, Ankur became jealous about Preeti’s success and he started having ill-feelings against her.”
Ankur then hatched a plan to harm Preeti. Preeti arrived in the city on May 2, 2013 accompanied by her father and relatives to join the Colaba Naval Hospital `INS Ashwini’ as a staff nurse. As she got off Garib Rath Express at Bandra terminus, an unidentified man threw acid at her and ran away.
Rathi’s father, uncle and aunt rushed her to Masina Hospital. After a valiant month-long battle, she succumbed to multiple organ failure at the Bombay Hospital. Later on Preeti was cremated at her home town Narela in Haryana on June 4, 2013.
Before her death, Preeti informed the police that Ankur might be one of the suspects responsible for committing the crime after watching the sketches. When the police were unable to make any headway into this case they restarted the investigation. They sought the records of all the passengers who travelled in the train. As they were whittling down the list of suspects from the records, one of the name was identified by Rathi’s family as being similar to a person she knew that’s led cops up to Ankur.
When Mumbai Crime Branch detained and questioned him strictly than he revealed that he had thrown acid on Preeti as he was jealous about her success. The accused has been remanded into police custody till January, 24.
Maharashtra Home Minister RR Patil said, “This case has been delayed for many months. The police have nabbed the accused from Delhi. The victim’s parents had approached me and demanded a CBI probe into this matter.”
