The young woman, whose highly decomposed body was found under mysterious circumstances in a guest house in Paharganj here on Thursday, has been identified as a French national. While a hunt has been launched for the person who had booked the room, the police are yet to ascertain if it is a case of murder.
The woman has been identified as 34-year-old Lauren, who had checked into Hare Rama Hotel in Paharganj on March 30. “An examination of her travel documents revealed that her visa was to expire on April 10,” said a police officer.
The closed-circuit television camera footage revealed that she left the hotel on Sunday evening, after which she did not return. “The degree of decomposition of the body suggests that the victim died about two-three days ago. It is not possible to ascertain if she had sustained any external injury. The nature of injuries and cause of death can be established through post-mortem. We have informed the French Embassy about the incident,” said the officer.
Since no CCTV cameras had been installed at Hindustan guest house where the body was discovered, the police are yet to find out when Lauren had gone to meet Manjoor Ahmed (38), a resident of Jammu and Kashmir, in whose name the room had been booked.
Taking a serious view of the lapse on the part of the guest house owner, the police are recommending cancellation of its licence.
Inquiries by the police have revealed that Manjoor had been running a handicraft shop in Paharganj for the past five years and would stay mostly at the same guest house.
“During a conversation with a friend, Manjoor had disclosed that a foreign national had died in his room,” the officer added.
