This Friday, 64-year-old Vijayakumar PB's family was getting set to celebrate his 65th birthday. But on Wednesday, Rajya Sabha TV Journalist Ambily Vijaykumar, found her father's body. He was brutally murdered at his residence in Samachar Apartments in east Delhi’s Mayur Vihar area by an unidentified assailant on Wednesday.
He sustained multiple stab injuries, mostly in his abdominal region and arms, inflicted with a small, sharp object, like a fruit knife, by someone suspected to be known to him, a senior police official said.
Vijaykumar was a retired government official, who hailed from Kerala and had moved to Delhi in 1994. Vijaykumar and his wife had moved in to the apartment around three months ago, living in a flat close to their daughter’s building in the same housing complex. His wife works with the Income-Tax Department.
"A case of murder has been registered and preliminary investigation suggests that the assailant was known to the victim. The assailant was given a friendly entry and was offered tea and biscuits," said Rishipal Singh, Deputy Commissioner of Police, Delhi (East)
Singh said the house was neither found to be in a ransacked condition nor was any cash or jewellery found missing. However, no possible motive behind the act can be ruled out at this stage. From preliminary investigation, it appears that the assailant took away an LCD television from the house to elude security guards in the complex, pretending to be a mechanic, Singh said.
The incident came to light around 1.30 pm when Kumar’s daughter Ambily Vijaykumar came to check on her father, who was not responding to her phone calls, and her mother was in office.
Ambily and her children often used to join Vijaykumar for lunch at his house.
When Ambily rushed to the house today, she found her father lying in a pool of blood, with his semi-nude body under a mattress in the bedroom. She raised an alarm, following which neighbours rushed to the apartment and called up the police control room.
Police is on the lookout for a woman in her late 20s, who was captured in a CCTV grab at the exit gate of the apartment complex, where the victim lived.
The suspect was recorded on camera while exiting the apartment complex from gate number three, carrying a television which was stolen from victim. While leaving, the lady can be seen wearing a black t-shirt with blue trousers and is carrying LED TV covered in white cloth.
(With inputs from PTI)
This first appeared on The Quint.