New Delhi: A Swiss woman, Nina Berger, who was allegedly killed by a man she met online, first met the accused Gurpreet Singh in Zurich in 2021, ThePrint has learnt. The woman’s body was found with chained limbs near a school in west Delhi’s Tilak Nagar Friday. The body was in a plastic bag. Singh, 30, arrested Saturday, has confessed to murdering the woman after she rejected his marriage proposal multiple times.
DCP West Vichitra Veer told ThePrint that a PCR call was received in the Tilak Nagar police station regarding a body lying near the wall of an MCD-run school in the locality.
“From the initial circumstances, it appeared to be a case of murder, hence the forensic and crime teams were called to the spot. The doctors from DDU Hospital were also called to help us understand the circumstances of death,” he added.
The DCP said that the police were still working on confirming the circumstances and all the details surrounding the case.
A senior police officer told ThePrint that Singh had invited the woman to India with a promise of a “big surprise” and had been in touch with her through a social media chat room platform.
“We are verifying his claims. Call detail records and their chats are being analysed. He invited her to India. They had met in Zurich in 2021 and since then he said that he proposed to her multiple times but she kept refusing. So he hatched a plan, called her to India saying there was a big surprise,” a police source said.
Berger reportedly arrived in Delhi on 11 October and stayed at a hotel in Janakpuri. According to a PTI report, Singh asked her to meet him outside the hotel. “From there, he took her towards the Vishnu Garden area where he told her that he wanted to give her a surprise,” PTI quoted police as saying.
According to a Hindustan Times report, which was verified independently by ThePrint, the strangulation of the victim took place in a hatchback car and it was CCTV footage of the car that aided the police in identifying Singh as the accused.
“When we checked the ownership of the car, it turned out that it was sold as a used car and the documents used for the sale belonged to a woman living in west Delhi. She appeared to be unaware that her documents were misused,” Hindustan Times cited a police official as saying.
The report further added that Singh had originally left the hatchback car on the side of the road in an isolated part of west Delhi’s Vishnu Garden, but allegedly moved the body in a hurry to the Tilak Nagar location due to the “strong stench” of the decomposing body.
Police sources further revealed that over Rs 2 crore in cash was recovered from Singh’s residence.
Meanwhile, Delhi Police has requested the help of the Ministry of External Affairs to contact Berger’s family in Switzerland and inform them about the incident.
(Edited by Richa Mishra)
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