On 7th March 2024, three convicts in the 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). The court convicted them in the murder case on the 23rd of December, 2023, almost six years after the incident took place. It is pertinent to note that Shehzadi, the girlfriend of Ankit Saxena, had testified to the media in 2019 that her family was against her relationship with a Hindu boy.
A reading of the judgement passed on the 23rd of December 2023, convicting the family of the girl, reveals chilling details of the moments before Ankit Saxena’s throat was slit.
According to the judgement, 4 different witnesses, who stood the test of cross-examination, testified to what the father, mother and uncle of the girl were saying before they caught hold of Ankit Saxena and murdered him.
According to the witnesses whose testimony remained unimpeached, the mother of the girl, Shehnaz Begunn was abusing and hitting Ankit Saxena when they caught hold of him on the evening of the 1st of February 2018. The witnesses have testified that Mohammad Salim (uncle of the girl) caught hold of the right hand of Ankit Saxena while a minor (who is still under trial in the Juvenile Court) held the left hand. The father of the girl, Akbar Ali, then held Ankit Saxena by the hair, pulled his head back and slit his throat. After his throat was slit, Ankit Saxena looked at one of the witnesses pointing towards his neck and fell on the floor in a pool of his own blood.
4 different witnesses testifying to what was being said before the murder and while Ankit was being beaten and abused, have said that the mother of the girl, Shehnaz Begum, was abusing Ankit Saxena saying “Aaj tera kaam tamaam karna hai” (today, we will ensure you are finished). The uncle of the girl, Mohammad Salim and the minor were also beating and abusing Ankit Saxena saying they would teach him a lesson for playing with the honour of their family. While the uncle, father and the minor accused were beating and abusing Ankit, Shehnaz Begum screamed at the others asking them not to spare him in the name of Allah. “Tumhe kasam hai allah kee ki isko aaj naho chhodna“, said Shahnaz.
It was after the mother invoked Allah that Akbar Ali proceeded to slit the throat of Ankit Saxena.
It is also recorded in the judgement that while the family of Ankit’s girlfriend was beating him up, Ankit’s friend tried to rescue him. When he proceeded to rescue Ankit, it was Shehnaz Begum who tried to get violent with the friend and bite his hand. She also threatened his friend to back off, since he had a sister too.
It appears from the reading of the judgement that Shehnaz threatened Ankit’s friend with consequences that would befall his sister and him if he tried to intervene.
It was at this time that Ankit Saxena shouted and asked his friend to rescue his girlfriend, who was standing at Tagore Garden Metro Station and take her to the police station, lest her family try to harm her too. When his friend refused to leave him alone, Ankit pleaded with him to take care of the girl.
The details of the grisly murder case of Ankit Saxena in 2018
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’.