At 9 pm on April 21, Rahul Meena’s mother asked her 23-year-old son to have some food before he headed to a wedding. This is the last time the family claims to have seen Meena, who is now accused of raping two women and murdering one of them, the daughter of an Indian Revenue Service officer.
Around 11 pm the same night, the family, which stays in a village in Rajasthan’s Alwar, woke up to banging on their front door — a resident alleged Meena had raped his wife. “He was yelling at the top of his voice,” his mother told The Indian Express. “We were shocked. We told him Rahul wasn’t home. An hour later, two policemen came.”
On the night of April 22, Meena was arrested for killing an IRS officer’s daughter at their family home in Delhi. He used to work at their residence before he was let go earlier this year.
According to the police, the two crimes took place within hours of each other – the first, in Alwar, around 10 pm on Tuesday night and the second, in the national capital, the following morning. In the Alwar case, police have filed an FIR under sections of rape, voluntarily causing hurt and criminal intimidation and are recording the woman’s statement.
The woman, who is married and has children, was alone at home at the time, investigators said, adding that Meena knew her. In fact, he had gone to the wedding with the woman’s husband and left midway to commit the crime.
In the village, the two crimes have sent shockwaves. Many residents described Meena as a “quiet man” who largely stayed home ever since he returned from Delhi. On Thursday, a crowd had gathered outside his house in Alwar, hoping for a peek inside.
Soon after the incident, the police had detained his father, younger brother and four others from the village. When contacted, Alwar Superintendent of Police Sudheer Chaudhary said, “They have been let go now. We wanted information regarding his whereabouts. At present, the Delhi Police have his custody. After he’s sent to judicial custody, we will get a production warrant and bring him to Rajasthan for further investigation.”
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Meena, whose father is a labourer and mother a homemaker, completed his BA with first division in 2023, but soon developed an online gambling habit.
“He had a debt of Rs 5 lakh,” claimed an aunt. “His maternal uncle, who works in Delhi, referred him for a house help job in Delhi.”
In 2024, Meena left for Delhi to work at the IRS officer’s home. “He was earning Rs 20,000 per month, out of which he would send more than half home,” his mother said.
He worked there for 18 months. According to the family, four months ago, Meena told his uncle of his gambling problem and asked for Rs 50,000.
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“A few weeks later, he came back home. Meena told us that sahab (the employer) had gone on a long vacation with his family and that he had been temporarily let go, but would rejoin them soon,” his aunt said.
What the family did not know was that Meena had been let go over financial improprieties. Once home, he resumed gambling, often with the husband of the Alwar woman he allegedly raped. The two eventually fell out over a money dispute
On April 21, soon after the woman’s husband accused Meena of sexual assault, the family tried to contact him but could not get in touch. At 10 pm the next day, the Alwar police visited the household with another piece of news – that a girl had been raped and murdered in Delhi and that Meena was the prime suspect. While his mother insists he could not have raped the two women, she acknowledged, “The stress of debt was eating him from inside, which is why he went back to the house (in Delhi) to steal money.”
Investigators have found that Meena first assaulted the IRS officer’s daughter with a table lamp and a water bottle before allegedly raping her. Once she became unconscious due to the assault, he allegedly dragged her down the stairs by her hair to the third floor. He then, police sources said, tried to open a digital locker with her fingerprints. When that did not help, Meena used a screwdriver to open the safe before stealing Rs 2.5 lakh in cash.
