A 38-year-old married woman was found murdered at a guesthouse near Jama Masjid in central Delhi, the police said on Monday.
The woman, identified as Kaushalya Devi, had checked in with a man — who is the prime suspect in the case — at the guesthouse at around 10.15 am on Sunday, said a police official.
The man left the room at around 2.30 pm and did not return. When the guesthouse staff went to check on Kaushalya Devi at around 11 pm, they found her lying motionless inside the room and called up the police, the official added.
A police team then went to the guesthouse and took the woman to a hospital, where she was declared brought dead.
The police had to check the guesthouse records to ascertain the identities of the deceased and the prime suspect. Meanwhile, the body has been sent for a post-mortem, the official said.
It prima facie appears that the woman was strangled to death, said the official, adding that a case of murder has been registered and a search launched for the accused. The accused was identified with the help of CCTV grabs obtained from the guesthouse and turned out to be a person known to the deceased woman’s family.
“The police is raiding potential whereabouts of the accused and a separate team has been sent to his native village in UP,” said DCP (central) Parmaditya.
The deceased woman was employed at a factory and her husband told the police that she had left home on Sunday, saying she was headed to her workplace. The couple have a son and two daughters, all aged between nine and 13 years, and live near Jama Masjid, said the official.
