Sales executive in 3-day police custody

The magistrate asks the police: “Do you have a witness?”

The policemen reply in affirmative. “My lord, he had been habitually dropping her in his car to her Shahdara house; the office is at Parliament Street.”

After some more questions, the magistrate is convinced and remands the accused to three-day police custody. The police inform the magistrate that they will take Tandon to Amritsar for verification of the shop where he picked up the 400ml chloroform bottle. He had gone there on a recent official trip.

The police said that during the interrogation last night, Tandon confessed his attraction for Meenakshi. She would apparently reject all his advances.

Last evening, around 5, the two left their Parliament Street office in Tandon’s car.

On the way to Meenakshi’s home Mohan Park, Shahdara, he stopped at a deserted spot at Karkadooma. Tandon knew it would be “safe” as he had been here before to visit a stockist. Just before they reached the designated spot, he got off on the pretext of buying cigarettes. He poured the chloroform on a towel. They drove on and then Tandon clamped the towel on Meenakshi’s face, after which he tried to assault her. She was out cold. Tandon panicked.

He got more agitated as a curious Jagriti Vihar resident (Satish Kumar) and a chowkidar bore down on the scene. The police were called and Meenakshi’s body and the chloroform bottle were found inside the car. And Tandon was hauled to the Anand Vihar police station.

His relatives turned up in court today. But they are sequestered in a corner, shocked, embarrassed and avoiding the flashbulbs. “We haven’t had a meeting with him yet. We couldn’t speak to him. Neither could his wife for she was in a semi-conscious state. She is not in a state to ask whether she knew about all this or not,” says Tandon’s nephew Rajan.

“He is a very reserved and a shy person. We are all shocked as to how it happened,” he adds, before running off to catch up with the policemen who are taking away Tandon. Rajan wants to pass on a vial of insulin for his diabetic uncle.

`She was excited about her wedding’
There is a hushed silence at Meenakshi Singh’s house is grim. The relatives have just come in after the cremation. a durrie is being spread on the floor. There are murmurs. “The behaviour of mortuary staff was very bad.”

Friends and relatives remember her as a sincere, polite and cooperative woman. She had been working with Eveready for the last four years and excited about her wedding planned for next month.

“Once or twice Tandon came to drop her here. He used to call Meenakshi his sister,” says a relative.

“She never complained to us about any harrassment at the office. She always used to appreciate office people, including Tandon. She used to say that he is a nice man,” says Vishal, her brother, adding, “She also knew his wife.”

Her father Ram Richpal Singhal enters the house, shaken. He only says, “Jo hona tha woh ho gaya, ab kya kar sakte hai (What had to happen has happened. What can we do now?)”