Delhi murder victim cremated, kin remember studious girl

New Delhi, Aug 17 (IANS) A teenage girl strangled a day earlier in Rohini was cremated here on Thursday afternoon amid tearful remembrances by kin and neighbours of the studious girl who had won academic laurels.

As Shreya Sharma's pyre was lit, her mother Lalitha cried out loud near the crematorium's gate. "Don't burn her, she will feel the heat. It will hurt her. Don't burn her."

Shreya, 17, was strangled on Wednesday evening by a man known to her in a narrow lane hardly 200 metres from her two-bedroom flat in Rohini.

Earlier, at her home, as relatives and family friends prepared for the funeral, Shreya's body lay on the floor in a room with the shields and trophies she had won placed nearby.

On the wall were hung two pictures of her with her family that included her parents and younger brother, all smiling.

When the white shroud covering the body was lifted to show her face, Lalitha and Shreya's grandmother let out loud wails.

As the body was being carried out by pall-bearers out of the family's house, the teenager's mother broke off from a group of relatives surrounding her and ran behind the procession for a glimpse of her dead daughter.

As the procession of people carrying the body moved to the crematorium, it passed a narrow lane between two buildings with an outline of a human figure drawn in chalk on the ground.

The 17-year-old lay dead for a night at the spot, hardly 200 metres from the family flat.

"With a bag lying on one side and slippers on the other, she lay there facing skywards," Sultan, 47, told IANS.

After police came to know of the body early Thursday morning, Sultan and another man Lambu working at the apartment complex rushed to inform Lalitha.

At the crematorium, everyone remembered Shreya as a studious and well-mannered girl.

"She was very intelligent and her picture was published in newspapers when she topped Class 10 exams," family's neighbour Suresh Sahni said.

Shreya had also reached the fourth round of a National Aeronautics and Space Administration programme, her family members said.

Outside the crematorium gate, Lalitha was inconsolabe. As her relatives tried to move her away, she collapsed thrice, crying out: "Please don't burn her, please."

Police have arrested Sarthak Kapoor, 18, a year senior to Shreya in school, in connection with the murder.

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