A 57-year-old man who used to practice medicine in north-west Delhi’s Jahangirpuri was found dead at his residence on Monday morning, a month before his daughter’s wedding, the police said.
The police suspect robbery as the motive since cash and jewellery amounting to over ₹10 lakh were found stolen from the house.
Deputy Commissioner of Police (North-West) Aslam Khan said that the victim has been identified as Mukim Ahmad Iqbal, Bachelor of Ayurveda, Medicine and Surgery, who ran a clinic on the ground floor of his residence. The victim lived with his 25-year-old daughter Sophia on the first floor of the building.
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The police said they received a call around 10.30 a.m. from a relative of the victim who runs a chemist shop nearby. The caller informed them that the victim was lying unconscious on the bed. “When a police team reached the spot, Mukim was found dead and an almirah in his room was found ransacked. There were no visible injury marks on the body and the accused’s entry to the house seemed friendly,” Ms. Khan said.
The victim’s daughter told the police that ₹4-5 lakh in cash and jewellery worth ₹5-6 lakh had been stolen from the almirah.
Ms. Khan said the front door of the victim’s house used to mostly remain open because of the clinic on the ground floor and for his daughter. The daughter, a guest lecturer at a government school, had left the house around 7.30 a.m. on the day of the incident.
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“His wife had passed away a few years ago. Whenever the daughter left the house, she would not wake the victim up as he did not like anyone to disturb him when he slept,” Ms. Khan said.
Mukim and his daughter had been making arrangements for the wedding scheduled for December 9. They had kept cash and jewellery in the house for the wedding. The police suspect that an insider might have tipped off the unidentified accused about the presence of valuables in the house.
“The two [deceased and his daughter] had returned late on Sunday after inviting a relative in Meerut for the wedding,” Ms. Khan said.
The police have registered a murder case and preserved the body for post-mortem, which will be conducted on Tuesday.
The police have obtained CCTV footage near the house and are scanning it. Ms. Khan said that two domestic helps who used to work in the house will also so be questioned.