What started as an ‘acid attack’ on a 20-year-old Delhi University student ended up being a twisted plot to ‘settle scores’ with the other families with whom they had several disputes, property tiffs, rape and blackmail.
On Sunday, the woman, a student of DU’s School of Open Learning, alleged that three men on a bike threw acid on her while she was walking to college. With burn injuries on her hand, she was admitted to RML Hospital.
While police began probing the case, the situation turned dramatic as they found ‘contradictions’ between the woman’s statement and the CCTV footage.
Student’s father ‘staged’ acid attack
Police on Monday said that the father of the 20-year-old DU student admitted that he staged the alleged acid attack to frame three men with whom he had personal disputes. Investigators said he confessed to raping the wife of one of the men initially accused in the alleged attack.
The father was arrested from Sangam Vihar, where he was hiding after the filing of a rape case against him.
During interrogation, the man allegedly told police that he and his daughter concocted the acid attack story to falsely frame the three men, including the husband of the woman he raped and his two relatives. The father and these three men were involved in personal and legal disputes with him.
“He admitted that the entire case was orchestrated to settle scores,” a senior officer was quoted as saying in one of HT’s earlier reports.
A police officer said, “The father influenced his daughter and son to stage this. He carefully planned the whole charade to make it appear as if a stalker targeted his daughter near the college. We are questioning more people.”
Used ‘fake’ acid
Special commissioner of police (law and order) Ravindra Singh Yadav on Tuesday said that after finding multiple contradictions between the woman’s statement and CCTV footage, police believed that the DU student used a toilet cleaner from her home to injure herself and stage the alleged acid attack.
Officers who examined the ‘crime’ scene said they did not find any trace of acid, and the burns on the woman’s hand were also under medical review.
Later, during questioning, police said the woman admitted that it was her father who attacked her with a strong toilet cleaner, while her brother later dropped her off near the college. “The family had planned to frame the three men,” said a senior police officer in HT’s previous report.
Father raped ‘accused’s’ wife, blackmailed her
Two days before the supposed acid assault, on October 24, police said the wife of one of the men allegedly accused in the incident had filed a complaint against the 20-year-old’s father, accusing him of rape and blackmail.
She told authorities that she had worked at his factory between 2021 and 2024, during which he allegedly raped her and blackmailed her with objectionable photos and videos.
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When the DU student’s father was called for questioning in that case, the rape accused didn’t himself appear before the police. Instead, he sent his lawyer and an Islamic preacher, prompting police to launch a hunt. Eventually, he was tracked down to Sangam Vihar, from where the father was arrested late on Monday.
Property dispute
Other than the husband of the woman he raped, the DU student’s father also framed two other men, relatives of the ‘main accused’, in the alleged acid attack.
The two supposed co-accused were distant relatives of the 20-year-old woman, the probe revealed. The mother of these two men and the woman’s father were engaged in a property dispute.
Additionally, in 2018, the woman’s family had allegedly attacked their mother with acid.
Probe so far
Investigators explained how CCTV footage complicated the woman’s story of the alleged acid attack on her.
While initially police said that the alleged attacker had been “stalking her (the DU student) for months”, CCTV footage and call records portrayed a different picture.
On Monday, the man accused of stalking the woman, a painter by profession, appeared at the police station voluntarily. The analysis of his mobile phones, CCTV footage and witness statements corroborated his statements. His bike, mentioned in the woman’s complaint, was also spotted in Karol Bagh during the alleged incident.
Meanwhile, the other two supposed co-accused were also verified to have been in Agra with their mother at the time of the alleged acid attack.
According to CCTV footage, the woman left her house on Sunday on a two-wheeler with her brother, who dropped her off in the Ashok Vihar area. From there, she took an e-rickshaw. None of the three alleged accused were seen in the footage.
Police said they were also probing why her brother did not drop her off at the college gate.
