The woman's body was found with her hands and legs tied while her clothes were in a disheveled condition.
A 40-year-old woman's semi-naked body was found in a closed government nursery in South Delhi's Vasant Kunj area on Saturday morning, the police said. Confirming that she was murdered, sources in the police suspect that she was raped and also violated with a stick in a chilling reminder of the gruesome gang-rape case of a paramedical student in December 2012.
Police sources had earlier said they suspected the woman, a mother of three, had been gang-raped before she was killed, and that further details would emerge from the post-mortem. The woman's body was found in the bushes with hands and legs tied, while her clothes were in a disheveled condition, police sources told NDTV.
A security guard informed the police at around 8 am about the incident; the police have registered a case of murder.
"She waswearing a scarf, that seems to have been used to strangle her," Premnath, DCP South Delhi confirmed.
The woman was the only earning member of her family, after her security guard husband met with an accident last March. She has three daughters. She had joined a factory, where she did embroidery work, about two months back.
Police have detained some workers from the factory for questioning, and are looking for a man who would often escort the woman back home for safety, whenever she got late at work.
The woman had left from home yesterday morning around 9:30 am for work. However, when she did not return till late evening her family members launched a search and also informed the police.
Her daughters said she had been escorted home at about 10 pm on Thursday by a man sent by the head tailor of the factory, who had then called her to enquire if she had reached safely. The girls said their mother had argued with the head tailor, but did not know about what.
When she had not returned home by 10 pm last night, they went to the factory with their father, looking for her, but met with little success. They learnt that her body had been found, when they received a call from the police in the morning.