In a ghastly incident in Ajanta Apartments of East Delhi’s Madhu Vihar, a 38-year-old man allegedly stabbed his 60-year-old father around 2.30 pm on January 8.
The accused, Rahul Matta, a dismissed merchant Navy officer, repeatedly stabbed his father, RP Matta, in front of the society’s entrance gate. Before the security guard deployed at the gate could intervene, he slit his father’s throat and left him in a pool of blood.
Shankar Singh, a security guard who witnessed the entire episode, said to City Spidey, “It's hard for me to explain what happened — it was so sudden. I opened the gates for a car to leave, and then went to attend an intercom call at the gate. Suddenly, I heard a lot of screaming and looked back. I saw Matta continuously stabbing his father. I rushed to intervene and he attacked me too. But, somehow, I managed to escape. He then ran inside the society, and I immediately informed the managing committee office.”
GL Gupta, secretary of the managing committee, said that after stabbing his father, Matta barged into a neighbour’s house.
The neighbour, VK Sharma, who lives on the third floor with his wife and son, recalled, “I was watching TV when he forcibly entered my home. He attacked me with a knife too. I went into the adjacent room with a balcony and locked myself there.”
Sharma is an actor by profession and has acted in many Bollywood movies, including Khosla Ka Ghosla and Tevar.
A police official told City Spidey that when a team of Delhi police arrived at the spot, Matta turned on the LPG and set Sharma’s flat on fire, injuring at least nine policemen.
“Seeing the flames from Sharma’s flat, I immediately called the fire brigade. Within 10 minutes, three fire engines reached the spot. Luckily, Sharma, his wife and son escaped unhurt, as they had managed to run out before the blast,” Gupta recounted.
Another managing committee member, who requested anonymity, told City Spidey that Matta, after killing his father, wanted to kill his mother as well. “Before he could do so, people gathered outside his house,” he said.
He added, “The father had taken voluntary retirement from SBI and had shifted to Canada with his younger son. He had come here a couple of months back and was supposed to go back to Canada next week. Rahul, who is the elder son, was not allowed to live with the parents, as he was thought to be an alcoholic and also very temperamental. The accused did not share good terms with anyone in the society. Earlier, a couple of women had complained about his behaviour. So we had asked his father to not allow him to stay here.”
