23-year-old Esther Anuhya's murder led to protests in Mumbai
More than a week after his daughter's body was found decomposed and burnt in a swamp near a major highway on the outskirts of Mumbai, S Jonathan Prasad met the Union Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde to plead for help.
Nobody has been arrested so far for the murder of Esther Anuhya, a 23-year-old working with software major TCS. The Mumbai police's investigation has yielded no breakthrough.
"We ourselves looked for my daughter after she went missing. And finally, after ten days, her body was recovered. No parent should face the kind of trauma that I have faced," Mr Prasad said.
Mr Shinde has written to Maharashtra's Home Minister RR Patil, asking for "swift action" and the identification of Esther's killers.
However, Mumbai Police Commissioner Satyapal Singh said "The complaint was registered with Kurla Railway Police and not Mumbai Police. It is wrong to say it was not a discovery of Mumbai police and the family knows about it. The investigation is on the right direction."
The police say they have sent her clothes for forensic analysis to see if there are any traces of foreign DNA on them. Suspects will be subjected to DNA tests as that might give the police the breakthrough they are looking for.
Esther's father, meanwhile, has not allowed himself any time to grieve.
After spending Christmas with her family, Esther boarded a train to Mumbai and phoned her father on January 4 to say she would inform him when she had settled into her hostel.
When he didn't hear from her, Mr Prasad phoned the police for help. He alleges that officers of the Government Railway Police or GRP refused to launch a search for Esther, and suggested that she may have eloped.
With the help of the Vijayawada police, Mr Prasad and his relatives then hunted for Esther based on her cellphone records and found her body, identified by a ring she was wearing.
"The Home Minister gave us a patient hearing. He told us that he will help us. He will talk to the Maharashtra government," Mr Prasad said.