An 82-year-old woman was found murdered and her house ransacked in Jangpura here on Monday. The police suspect the complicity of a recently employed Nepalese domestic help who has gone missing after the incident.
Vimal Shah lived with her 59-year-old son Bharat Ratan Shah, a businessman, and her daughter-in-law Lipika on the second floor of a building in K Block of Jangpura. Mr. Shah's two sons are engineers and both are based in Singapore. The couple had left for Singapore on October 17 to be with their children.
The elderly woman had been living here with Jagat, a 20-year-old Nepalese domestic help the family had hired over a month ago.
The murder came to light on Monday morning when Mr. Shah could not contact his mother on her phone despite repeated calls. He then called up his neighbour living on the first floor, requesting him to check on his mother. The neighbour knocked on the door several times but did not get any response.
Meanwhile another domestic help named Seema, who has been working for the family for the past several years, reached there and helped the neighbour open the door.
They entered the house looking for the woman and found her lying in the bathroom with her hands and legs tied up. There were no signs of life in her, suggesting that she was dead.
Subsequently the police were informed. The victim was taken to a hospital where she was declared dead on arrival. Since her only son is abroad, the body has been preserved and the post-mortem would be conducted on his arrival.
The victim's nephew Mohit Shah, a resident of Karol Bagh, said he received a call saying that his aunt had been found dead in her house. “The entire house had been ransacked. The police are saying that robbery was the motive,” he added.
The police received a distress call around 11-15 a.m., following which they rushed to the spot. Circumstantial evidence suggested that Ms. Vimal Shah, an asthmatic patient, was smothered to death. The district Additional Commissioner of Police Ajay Chaudhary also visited the scene of crime, from where a forensic team lifted evidence, including fingerprints, for clues. “It is not yet clear what all has been stolen from the house. We will get the details once Mr. Shah arrives,” said Mr. Chaudhary.
Preliminary enquiries by the police revealed that the domestic help, Jagat, had gone missing. The police found that the Shahs had not got his antecedents verified through them. “However, we have located the person, also a Nepalese national, through whom the family had employed the domestic help,” said Mr. Chaudhary, adding that several teams had been formed to pursue the leads and conduct raids. The family of the accused lives in Nepal.
A case of robbery-cum-murder has been registered at Hazrat Nizamuddin police station. Mr. Shah, a popular golfer in the Capital, was expected to arrive in the Capital on Monday night.
