more-in A 17-year-old girl was allegedly killed by her friend on Wednesday night in Rohini Sector 17 after the two got into an argument. The accused was arrested early on Thursday, the police said. Parents of the victim, Shreya Sharma, who was a Class XII student at a public school in Rohini, started looking for her around 8 p.m. on Wednesday when she didn’t return home after tuitions. “She had gone for tuition around 5 p.m. but we got worried when she didn’t return till 8 p.m.,” said her father Yogesh Sharma, an assistant manager with a bank, standing outside the cremation ground. Suspicious statements The father said Shreya didn’t pick up any of their calls. “After 8:15 p.m., the phone was switched off,” he said. Mr. Sharma then called her friend, the accused Sarthak Kapoor (18). “When I called him, it so happened that his mother picked up and she said his phone was switched off,” he said, adding that the statement made him suspicious. Sarthak’s mother allegedly told Mr. Sharma that they Sarthak is coming home, after which he went to the accused’s house in Rohini Sector 11. “Once there, I asked him if he knew where Shreya was and he said he didn’t,” said Mr. Sharma. The father then reached the K.N Marg police station, taking the accused with him. “The police immediately suspected his involvement as he was constantly changing his statement,” he said. According to Mr. Sharma, who was at the police station through the night, the accused kept lying and dissuading the police and his parents supported him. “I am planning to file a complaint with the police against the parents. I suspect the boy told his parents about committing the crime and they were trying to save him,” he alleged. Body found near home It has been learnt that the accused finally confessed to the crime around 4 a.m. The body was found barely on a narrow pathway a km from the victim’s house “My mother-in-law sleeps in the room adjacent to the pathway but didn’t hear any sound of a fight,” said Jyoti Dahiya (35), who lived in the locality. DCP (Rohini) Rishi Pal said the accused told the police that he picked up Shreya around 5 p.m. “They reached a park in Sector 17 around 5:30 p.m. They went to a narrow lane nearby where a scuffle took place between them and he strangled her. Panicked, he left for home,” he said, adding they are probing the reason for the scuffle. Back home, sitting on the road inside a white-coloured tent, Shreya’s mother Lalita Sharma, a therapist at a Naturopathy institute, almost fainted and wished her daughter would come back alive. “They talk about miracles, why didn’t my daughter wake up..?” she said.

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