Lucknow: Dental student found dead on bed with mark on neck

LUCKNOW: A final-year dental science student was found dead at her residence in Nilmatha under Cantonment thana on Tuesday, a mark around her neck and circumstantial evidence pushing the needle of suspicion towards murder than suicide.
Priya Singh, 25, was the only child of civil engineer Prakash Singh and homemaker Renu who are away in Bihar attending a wedding for the past couple of days.Her body was discovered by her uncle, who lives in the neighbourhood, around 7.30am. Police have detained the family’s maid for questioning and sent the body for autopsy.

Sources in police said the BDS student was lying on her bed with her mouth open, which is indicative of asphyxia. A dupatta was hanging from the ceiling fan, a possible attempt to make a murder look like suicide. There were no signs of forced entry, meaning the deceased knew her assailant, if any. Finally, the door was latched from outside.
Cantonment circle officer Tanu Upadhyay said the mark around Priya’s neck could be caused both in case of murder (by strangulation) and suicide (by hanging). The officer said call logs, messages and images from her two phones and a tablet had been erased. “A broken phone has also been seized from the spot. All gadgets have been sent for forensic study,” Upadhyay added.
Cantonment SHO Ranjana Sachan said while postmortem would confirm the time and cause of death, from the condition of the body it appeared that the student died between 10pm and midnight. “Based on the complaint of the girl’s father, we have detained the maid for questioning,” the SHO said. Surveillance camera footage have not yielded any clue so far, but a tracker dog pressed into service sniffed its way to an alley around 100 metres from the house before it lost trail.