On Friday, 13th January 2023, 11 concerned Delhi police officers were suspended for carelessness during the Kanjhawala hit and drag case. This development came a day after the Union Home Ministry ordered Delhi Police Commissioner Sanjay Arora to suspend all police personnel positioned in three PCR vans and two pickets along the route where 20-year-old Anjali Singh was dragged and killed in the early hours of New Year’s Day. All of the suspended policemen are from the Rohini district of outer Delhi where the horrifying incident took place.
Two sub-inspectors, four assistant sub-inspectors, four head constables, and one constable are among those who have been suspended. Six of them were assigned to PCR and five to picket duty.
After an inquiry by Delhi Police Special Commissioner Shalini Singh found the officers guilty, the Home Minister asked the top policeman in Delhi to suspend them immediately.
The government also instructed that murder charges be included in the First Information report. The MHA has directed the Delhi Police to file murder charges against the five people involved in the horrible Kanjhawala death case, in which Anjali Singh, 20, died after being dragged by a car for roughly 12 kilometres in the early hours of January 1.
Notably, the defendants were previously charged with a culpable homicide that did not amount to murder, causing death by carelessness, and criminal conspiracy. The action followed the submission of a report by an investigative commission chaired by Special Commissioner Shalini Singh.
As the incident received widespread condemnation and outrage, forensic specialists from Gujarat were deployed to collect evidence and samples from the scene. According to Delhi Police, a team of five forensic specialists from the National Forensic Science University is visiting at the request of DCP (outer) Harendra K Singh, who is probing the case.
Five persons were apprehended soon after the event, while two more were apprehended for assisting in the crime. Deepak Khanna, 26, Amit Khanna, 25, Krishan, 27, Mithun, 26, and Manoj Mittal were detained on January 1, and two more males, Ashutosh and Ankush Khanna were subsequently arrested for allegedly hiding the accused.
The heinous crime occurred in Kanjhawala, outside of Delhi, in the early hours of January 1. A car hit the victim Anjali Singh’s two-wheeler, after which her clothes got tangled with the car and her body was dragged for around 10-12 kilometres from Sultanpuri to Kanjhawala.
Delhi police, investigating the case, had earlier revealed that the accused were aware of Anjali being trapped under their car within minutes after her scooter was hit by them. The accused had claimed that they were drunk and while they knew that they hit the scooter, they were not aware that their car was dragging the woman.
