September 21, 2012. Residents of Pocket B-7, Sector 17, Rohini, an otherwise quiet and peaceful locality, woke up to the shock and horror of a family having been wiped out in their neighbourhood. Yogendra Pratap Singh Chauhan, a 53-yearold chemicals businessman, was found murdered in the bedroom on the ground floor of his two-storey residence. His wife Rekha, 52, and daughter Karishma, 23,were found strangled in the bedrooms on the first floor.Chauhan appeared to have died due to excessive bleeding after being hit by a blunt object. Karishma’s body was found tied to a window, there were signs of sexual assault and there was an injury mark on her forehead, suggesting that she had been attacked with a blunt object before being strangled. Rekha was found strangled with the cable of an electric iron. The faces of the mother and daughter were covered with pillows and sheets when thebodies were found.The horrific incident happened barely two years after the death of Chauhan’s son who had died in a road accident in 2010. The family had barely come to terms with the incident and had only just moved on.Rekha was to leave for Vaishno Devi that morning with some other women from the neighbourhood. “When she did not turn up at the spot where a bus carrying the touring party to Jammu & Kashmir was waiting, a fellow passenger enquired about her. Rekha did not respond to the phone calls, so one of her neighbours accompanying her on the tour decided to go to her house,” recalled an investigator when asked how the murders were discovered.The neighbour reached Rekha’s house around 6am and when there was no response to the doorbell, she raised an alarm. Another neighbour came and pushed the door open to find Chauhan lying in a pool of blood. Police were hurriedly informed.When the cops started their investigation, a robbery emerged as the strongest motive although, prima facie, only a mobile phone and laptop were missing from the house. The family’s three monetary deals came under the scanner. Police were informed that the family had received around Rs 35 lakh as compensation for their son’s death in an accident. Chauhan’s eldest daughter, who lived in a nearby locality, had also received some compensation from her former husband as part of a divorce settlement. The third was related to the sale of an ancestral property in Etah, UP.At a later stage, investigators also believed that someone known to the family was involved. A few teacups on the table of the drawing room— police had hoped DNA picked from the cups would help solve the case—indicated someone familiar with thefamily had been present in the house at the time of the gruesome crimes. However, all the clues drew a blank as the cops struggled to join the dots.The cops scanned the contact list of Karishma’s mobile phone to ascertain whether the mass communications students was being harassedby someone. But the cops could never get to the bottom of why the Chauhans were killed or who murdered them.
Source: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/rohini-killings-clues-lead-nowhere-in-murder-of-3/articleshow/97595932.cms