4 school dropouts including 3 minors apprehended after Delhi teen raped, decaying body found in field

After victim’s decaying body found in open field, police investigation built leads from surveillance cameras to nab accused. Minor was allegedly raped and stabbed to death.

Representational image | ANI

New Delhi: Three minors are among four persons apprehended by the Delhi Police as part of a probe into the alleged rape and murder of a minor girl, whose decaying body was found in a field in the Capital earlier this week.

Deputy Commissioner of Police (Outer North District) Shobhit D, Saksena said in a statement that the police sprang into action after receiving information about a body lying in an open field near Kushak Road in Swaroop Nagar on Sunday morning. According to the police officers who visited the site where the body was recovered, the body was decayed and decomposed beyond the point of identification.

“Maggots were preying on the body and dogs were all around it,” one officer said. “Dogs had torn the body to an extent that the right arm was missing. The chest and torso were badly decomposed with an accumulation of maggots,” he added.

A post-mortem examination revealed eight stab injuries in the 17-year-old victim’s torso, and that sexual violence had been committed, sources told ThePrint.

After identifying the body, the police allegedly found that the minor victim’s family had not lodged any missing complaint. Instead, the victim’s parents were clueless about her whereabouts. The father is allegedly an alcoholic and works as a labourer, while the mother works as a domestic help, both living separately. They learned about their daughter’s death only through police.

In the absence of eyewitnesses, DCP Saksena created a senior-level team led by Additional DCP Lokeshwaran R., which went through footage of surveillance cameras in the area where the body was found. The footage revealed “suspicious” movement of a tempo, a three-wheeled cargo vehicle, in the area around the probable time of the offence.

“On the basis of the developed leads, a night-long search operation was conducted during the intervening night of 15–16.09.2026. The suspected tempo was traced to Khadda Colony, Swaroop Nagar. Its driver was identified and questioned,” DCP Saksena said in a statement.

Questioning the tempo driver provided a breakthrough, and the police reached the preliminary conclusion that the offence had been committed inside the vehicle. Further investigation led to the apprehension of four persons, including three minors. The lone adult accused has been identified as Shivam alias Sudama, who sometimes works as a driver. All four are school dropouts, a Delhi Police officer said. It is also alleged that the minor and the accused knew each other, having studied at the same school.

The police has also concluded that the victim was stabbed with two knives by the accused. Sources said that the accused have confessed to their crime, admitting stabbing the minor girl multiple times. The police seized two knives allegedly used in the commission of the offence along with clothes allegedly worn by the accused at the time of the incident as material evidence to be used in the trial.

“With no apparent eyewitness and the identity of the perpetrators initially unknown, the investigation team undertook extensive surveillance camera analysis of the surrounding area and adjoining routes. More than 50 cameras were scrutinised. During analysis, a suspected tempo was noticed moving in the vicinity around the relevant time. However, due to darkness, its registration number was not clearly visible. The team painstakingly analysed vehicle movements across multiple camera locations and correlated the footage with field verification, ultimately establishing the identity and route of the suspected vehicle,” DCP Saksena explained.

(Edited by Nardeep Singh Dahiya)