Sunny Batra and Sakshi Kapoor after their arrest. Picture by Ramakant Kushwaha

New Delhi, June 2: A schoolteacher killed her mother with her boyfriend’s help, stabbing her 21 times with a screwdriver, several kitchen knives and a broken beer bottle after the 55-year-old had caught them in her bedroom, police said today.

Officers claimed that Sakshi Kapoor, 26, had all her life been bullied by mother Kiran over the slightest things like a tap left running or a light switched on. Caught red-handed with Sunny Batra, 20, on May 28 evening, she apparently couldn’t bear the thought of the tongue-lashings that awaited her for the rest of her life.

“Mrs Kapoor started abusing the duo. As Sunny pounced on her, Sakshi ran to the kitchen and chose a variety of household knives and a screwdriver. A beer bottle brought by the duo was also used,” said assistant commissioner of police (ACP) Anil Kumar Lal, who investigated the case.

According to Lal, Sakshi has confessed to using the screwdriver to pin her mother’s palm to the bed while stabbing her with the other hand. Sunny, a second-year engineering student, allegedly joined in.

Sakshi and Sunny were arrested yesterday after the police found holes in their story about a robbery.

When the police, following a call by the young couple, arrived at the upscale State Bank Colony house in Delhi’s Paschim Vihar, they found Kiran’s blood-soaked body in one room and Sakshi crouching behind a sofa in another.

Sakshi’s father is an accountant and her elder brother an American Express employee in Delhi; Sunny’s father was a government contractor here till 2002 but has shifted to the US where he runs a business.

“Sakshi didn’t show any grief. Another point that raised our suspicions was that she hid in the house instead of running for help. Also, we realised the (alleged) robbers had left behind the more expensive and easy-to-carry things,” joint commissioner of police Ajay Kashayap said. He added that all the “stolen” stuff had been recovered from the duo.

Officers who questioned Sakshi said she had been extremely vindictive towards her mother. “Investigations revealed that Mrs Kapoor would take both her children to task over minor issues. She had gone out that day for her yoga classes and kirtan, which Sakshi thought would take close to two hours. She called Sunny home. But Mrs Kapoor returned early,” ACP Lal said.

The police claimed Sakshi had admitted she had several boyfriends before Sunny and that her parents knew nothing. Officers suggested that bullying by her mother, and hatred for her, had turned Sakshi mentally unstable.

Dr Harish Shetty, a psychiatrist The Telegraph spoke to, said after hearing the case details that he didn’t think Sakshi, whom he hasn’t seen, was mentally unstable.

“We have seen children killing their fathers, uncles and granddads across cultures, but a kid murdering her mother is rare. Sakshi’s (alleged) act, according to me, is purely a criminal act and not a case of psychological anomaly. She is not mentally unstable,” Shetty said.

“That this girl had a string of affairs (as alleged) also shows she has some issues of personality and truancy, and is impulsive by nature.”