IIT student held for woman’s murder in Shimla

SHIMLA - An IIT-Roorkee student was arrested in Haryana early Sunday for allegedly murdering a female IIT student with whom he had checked into a hotel here Friday night, police said.

A 22-year-old female student of Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)-Delhi, who came here with a male student of IIT-Roorkee, was found murdered in a hotel room here Saturday. Since then, the accused had gone missing.

“The accused, Gaurav Verma, a third-year architecture student of IIT-Roorkee, was arrested from Jagadhari in Haryana Sunday morning,” Shimla Superintendent of Police R.M. Sharma told IANS.

He said the victim has been identified as Pragati, a third-year student of textile engineering of IIT-Delhi.

Sharma said the duo reached here at around 3 a.m. Friday and checked into Hotel Rashik in Kaithu area. They were together Friday night, but Saturday morning the hotel staff found the woman bludgeoned to death and the man missing.

“While Gaurav belonged to Manikapur in Gonda district of Uttar Pradesh, Pragati belonged to Patna in Bihar,” a police official said.

Police talked to the principal of IIT-Roorkee who said Gaurav is a student there.

According to police, the duo came together in a cab from Delhi.

“The motive of the crime is yet be ascertained,” Sharma said.

Police found photographs of the duo on the victim’s laptop and an answer-sheet of the accused from the scene. Two knives, a broken liquor bottle allegedly used in the crime and a cake were also found on the scene.