A day after the killing of two maids at their employer's residence in southeast Delhi's Jangpura, police are looking for five unidentified suspects who were spotted roaming near the house on the day of incident, officials said on Tuesday.
The two women, aged 35 and 40, hailed from Darjeeling in West Bengal and had been living in the staff quarters of the house since they started working there as maids in June, they said.
One of the women was hired to take care of the employer who is an old woman and the other worked as a cook, police said.
The husbands of the dead work as labourers in Gurgaon and live in rented rooms, they added.
One of the CCTV footages recovered from near the house showed five masked men with bags walking in and around the house. They were seen conversing and later walking towards the residence, said a senior police officer.
"Since the five men were masked, it is difficult to identify them but we are also scanning other CCTV cameras installed in the area to identify them better and also to establish the vehicle or route taken by them while fleeing," he said.
The officer said four suspects were seen entering the house in CCTV footage and leaving after around 30 minutes. "However, since the entry seems to be friendly, we suspect they were either known to the owner and her family or the dead," he said.
As part of the investigation, police said at the time of incident, the 85-year-old woman, who is the owner of the house and lives with her nephew and his wife, was present but claimed to not hear any sound.
All of the members are being questioned along with other house helps and family members of the dead, police said.
The owner's nephew is a retired government officer and has a daughter who lives with her family in Gujarat.
According to police, the family said they last saw the house helps on Sunday night and went to sleep. They got to know about the incident on Monday morning when one of their other domestic helps called them after the two women did not open the door.
When contacted, Kapil Kakkar, the president of the Residents' Welfare Association of the colony, said that they were fully ooperating with the police and the family in the probe.
When asked about the deployment of guards in the block, he said, "The incident took place in K block where we have two gates, including entry and exit. At each of these gates, we have guards deployed 24x7. There are around five CCTV cameras installed in the block besides the ones installed by some of the residents outside their houses for safety."
"One of the guards deployed at a gate did see the masked men leaving but he did not suspect them or stop them to ask about their whereabouts. Other than seeing them leaving at around 3.30 am, the guards told us that they did not see anything else," he added.
According to police, the owner of the house was sleeping on the ground floor while the two women stayed on the first floor. The hands and legs of the dead were tied up by the assailants but nothing has been taken from the house.
On Tuesday, bodies of the two women were handed over to their families after post-mortem at AIIMS hospital. Police suspect that they were choked but an autopsy report is awaited to ascertain the exact cause of death.
Police had claimed that there were no visible injury marks on their bodies and further investigation was still underway to ascertain the motive behind the crime.
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