It was an eventful year for the national capital, with several key developments dotting the calendar, whether it was in the political sphere or the daily life of ordinary citizens. While some of these may set the mood for the coming year, a few, most of us, feel shouldn’t have happened at all. In this last edition of 2022, we look back at some striking events across various walks of life that occurred during the past 365 days, which may now define ‘Delhi 2022’.
Mehrauli murder
In one of the rarest gut-churning incidents, 27-year-old Shraddha Walkar was allegedly strangled by her live-in partner, Aaftab Amin Poonawala, who then chopped her body into more than two dozen pieces and threw them at different locations in forest areas in south Delhi and Gurugram in Haryana. Shraddha and Aaftab had moved to Delhi from Mumbai shortly before she was allegedly killed by him on May 18. It apparently took Aaftab several months to gradually dispose of all the body parts. For six months, night after night, at around 2 am, he reportedly used to leave his flat, carrying a plastic bag containing a body part of Shraddha, throw it at an abandoned place and return by 4am before morning walkers start venturing out. The case came to light on November 14 but Shraddha’s father, Vikas Walkar, had started searching for his missing daughter in October. The case unravelled after the Mumbai Police approached their Delhi counterparts on November 9. The next day, the Delhi Police registered an FIR and began a search for Shraddha. Aaftab was detained and after sustained interrogation, he revealed the details of the crime.
AAP wins MCD poll, becomes a national party
The year 2022 brought significant milestones for the Aam Aadmi Party, as it scored a victory in the high-stake Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) elections by securing a win in 134 out of a total of 250 wards. The elections came after the three municipal bodies were re-unified in Delhi. The results, declared on December 8, ended the 15-year regime of the BJP in the civic body. It paved the way for AAP to form a double-engine government in the national capital, giving it full control over almost all the major sectors, including health, infrastructure, environment, and education. The party, led by Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, also got the status of the national party by winning five seats in the Assembly elections in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home state, Gujarat.
CUET takes off amid chaos
Admissions to undergraduate courses in government colleges were marked by a cumbersome examination process, lengthy admission exercise and confusion outside examination centres. Besides the disruption of physical classes for two years, the 2021-22 Class XII batch will be remembered as the debut batch to take the Common University Entrance Test (CUET). In compliance with the National Education Policy 2020, admission for UG courses across the central universities was conducted through a common examination process. Around 15 lakh candidates appeared for the CUET exam in 2022. The University of Delhi – one of the renowned universities of India – also replaced its conventional merit system for UG admission with CUET this year. Following the new admission process, the university this year introduced a Common Seat Allocation System (CSAS) – an entirely new and different admission policy. The Delhi University also adopted the four-year Undergraduate Curriculum Framework with multiple exit options.
Split verdict on marital rape
In a series of similar matters, on May 11, a division bench comprising two judges of the Delhi High Court delivered a split verdict on marital rape. Justice Rajiv Shakdher favoured striking down the exception given to husbands in the law, and said it would be “tragic if a married woman’s call for justice is not heard even after 162 years” since the enactment of the IPC. The other judge, Justice C Hari Shankar, however, said the exception under the rape law is not “unconstitutional” and was “based on intelligible differentia”. Notably, the high court has observed that rape is rape and a rapist remains a rapist, and while every woman, including a sex worker, is entitled to decline consent and prosecute for rape, the right is not available to a married woman.
AIIMS under cyber attack
Just as the year was about to end, India had a close experience with the demons of the virtual world. The country’s top tertiary care hospital, the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), faced a major act of cyber terrorism that paralysed its patient care delivery system for over two weeks. The attack came to light on November 23, when users found that they could not access a key application that manages appointments, stores medical records and hosts reports of diagnostic tests carried out by the facility. It was found that the apex medical institute was hit by a ransomware attack that corrupted its servers and allowed the perpetrators to access sensitive medical records of thousands of patients, including politicians and celebrities. The National Investigation Agency was engaged to probe the issue. It took several days for the experts to retrieve the data lost in the attack.