On 7th March, three convicts in Ankit Saxena murder case were sentenced to life imprisonment. 23-year-old Ankit was murdered in February 2018 in west Delhi’s Raghubir Nagar by family members of his girlfriend who belonged to the Muslim community.
Additional sessions judge Sunil Kumar Sharma said to the accused, “Taking into consideration your age, background, antecedents and the work that you did before the incident, I am sentencing you to life imprisonment.”
The court further imposed a fine of Rs 50,000 each on the three convicts identified as Akbar Ali (father of the girl), Shehnaz Begum (mother of the girl) and Mohammad Salim (uncle of the girl). They were convicted by the court in the murder case on 23rd December 2023, almost six years after the incident took place.
#BreakingNow: अंकित की मां का नवभारत पर बयान.. 'अंकित के कातिलों को फांसी होनी चाहिए.. बकरा काटने वाले चाकू से अंकति को काट डाला था'
— Times Now Navbharat (@TNNavbharat) March 7, 2024
संवाददाता @gauravnewsman दे रहे थे अधिक जानकारी@rrakesh_pandey #AnkitSaxena #Crime #HC pic.twitter.com/Zn1ESQaGcU
In the December verdict, the court convicted them for the charges under Sections 302 and 34 of the Indian Penal Code. Furthermore, Shahnaz Begum was also convicted under Section 323 for assaulting Ankit’s mother Kamlesh Saxena when she was trying to save her son from the girl’s family.
Speaking on the verdict, Ankit’s mother said, “They killed my son with a butchering knife. They should get the death penalty.”
Ankit’s father has passed away since.
The details of the grisly murder case
A 23-year-old Hindu youth named Ankit Saxena was brutally murdered in Delhi, in February 2018, for being in a relationship with a girl named Shehzadi from the Muslim community. The murderers were family members, including parents of the girl. Ankit had been under pressure to break his relationship with the girl. Since he did not comply, he was murdered and his throat was slit.
It was revealed that the girl’s family was vehemently against their daughter being in love with a Hindu boy and proceeded to kill him in a pre-planned manner after engineering a road rage incident.
According to eyewitness accounts, Shehzadi’s mother wore a helmet and rode her scooter to the traffic intersection where they knew Ankit was present. She then rammed her scooter into Ankit’s vehicle so that Ankit would be forced to step out to help. As she was wearing a helmet, Ankit could not identify her and stepped out to help.
The woman then confronted Ankit and soon she was joined by her other family members. They all began to heckle and abuse Ankit blaming him that he had influenced Shehzadi to leave the house. A shop owner in the area had stated that when confronted by Shehzadi’s family, Ankit denied being in a relationship with her so that he was left alone. Another resident of the area had stated that Ankit even requested to call the police or be taken to the police station, but the girl’s family just kept beating him.
Neighbours alerted Ankit’s parents of the incident and they had rushed to the spot. But Shehzadi’s mother began attacking Ankit’s mother too who fell down. When Ankit bent down to help his mother get up, the girl’s uncle and brother then caught him by his hair and pulled him up. At that moment, while the two of them held Ankit’s arms from behind, the girl’s father slit his throat using his butchering knife.
However, media reports water downed the brutal murder case and it failed to inspire any outrage as Hindi and English mainstream media reports on the incident carefully tried to hide the religion of the accused, and the angle of religious hatred involved behind the crime.
Meanwhile, Ankit Saxena’s father, Yashpal Saxena was hailed by the ‘secular’ media and politicians as the face of communal harmony after he appealed to everyone not to communalise his son’s murder at the hands of his Muslim girlfriend’s family who disapproved of their inter-religious relationship. He had even organised an inter-faith iftar party in 2018 during Ramzan which was attended by various ‘social activists’.
