18-year-old Hindu girl Mamta was murdered by a married grooming jihadi Mohammad Shariq (25) at her house at Burail village in Sector 45, Chandigarh. The girl had started avoiding Shariq and blocked him on her phone which incensed the Islamist sexual predator and drove him to murder.

Mainstream media outlets like Indian Express have insensitively, although unsurprisingly, termed a ‘strained relationship’ as the probable reason for the murder. Shariq had hidden his married status and had most likely been grooming Mamata since she was minor – in which universe can this be labelled a ‘relationship’?

Shariq is a native of Bihar, and his wife lives there while he works in Chandigarh. He was earlier a neighbour of Mamta and later shifted to another locality at Burail village. He strangled Mamta to death at her house when she was alone on Saturday. Police have not ruled out the possibility of rape at this moment. She was found dead by her mother, Champa Devi, who returned from work around 2 pm Saturday.

Police said that the accused was planning to escape to Bihar when he was nabbed from a local bus stop. After initially falling for the groomer’s trap, Mamta started maintaining distance from him and also blocked him on her phone after she found he was married.

“Accused Mohammed Shariq was remanded in police custody for his custodial interrogation. We have found a CCTV camera footage showing accused entering the house of victim Mamta. According to the footage, he came out from the house after one and a half hours. The postmortem of the body is underway,” a police officer said. A case under Section 302 (murder) of the IPC was registered at Sector 34 police station.

A police officer said the victim was distancing from the accused after she came to know that he was married which did not go well with the accused.