Chandigarh Police are yet to make any breakthrough a day after a Panjab University professor’s wife was found murdered at their house in Sector 14 on Diwali morning.
Identified as Seema Goyal, 60, the victim was the wife of Prof Bharat Bhushan Goyal, who teaches at the University Business School (UBS). She was a homemaker.
The couple lived with their daughter in an independent house that shares its rear boundary wall with the vice-chancellor’s official residence, a high-security area on the campus.
On Thursday morning, the police control room received a call about a woman lying unconscious with her hands and legs tied at her house on the PU campus. “By the time, a police team reached the spot, the woman had been shifted to hospital,” said Ketan Bansal, superintendent of police (SP, city), Chandigarh.
Seema Goyal had been rushed to Government Multi Speciality Hospital, Sector 16, where doctors declared her brought dead.
A case was registered against the unknown assailant under Section 302 (murder) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) at the police station in Sector 11. After the postmortem, the woman’s body was handed over to her family. According to the preliminary report, she had died of a head injury.
Hand, feet were tied
{{/usCountry}}Hand, feet were tied
{{/usCountry}}In his statement to police, Prof Goyal said that on the intervening night of Wednesday and Thursday, his wife was sleeping in a bedroom of the ground floor while he was in a room on the first floor. Their daughter was not present in the house.
On Thursday, around 7:30 in the morning, he received a call on his mobile phone from his milkman, who told him to collect milk packets left at the main gate. When he came down to the ground floor, he was unable to open the main door.
He then went to the gate using the kitchen door and later found that the main door was locked from outside.
On entering the house again, he went to his wife’s room, and reportedly found her lying unconscious on the bed, with her hands and legs tied with a cloth.
Police scanning CCTV footage
SP Ketan Bansal said that the investigating team is scanning CCTV footage of the area to get any clue about the accused, but has failed to make any breakthrough yet.
Sources said CCTV cameras are installed outside the V-C’s residence and near a hostel situated close to Goyal’s house.
Other than that, police have to rely solely on Goyal’s statement as the body had already been removed by the time they reached the spot. After noticing his wife’s condition, Goyal had apparently informed his neighbours and called a doctor before rushing her to hospital.
Police have found no sign of forced entry into the house. Meanwhile, Goyal told police that his wife’s mobile phone had also gone missing.