Take care: Amratas last words to her father

He wanted to speak about the paper she was going to present at a conference at IIM,Bangalore,but she hung up with a take care,and promised to discuss the paper when he reached Indore the next morning.

The retired faculty in Kotaa Medical College,whos now associated with a dental college in Udaipur,never got the opportunity. She did not answer his calls in the morning.

Accompanied by his wife and elder daughter Namrata,Dr Pancholi reached the staff quarters in the IIM,Indore,campus in a hired taxi to find his daughter,who always spoke about studies,lying in a pool of blood.

Both her mobile phones were missing-everything else from gold to valuables was left untouched by the alleged murderer who,stabbed her repeatedly and left a trail of his blood-stained footprints.

A day after the gruesome murder the distraught father is inconsolable. He begs to be left alone. I have nothing to say, he said with folded hands while his wife and daughter looked in the garden for the rose plants Amrata had planted recently.

There is nothing left inside the house to look for, the 35-year-old elder sister,who teaches at BITS,Pilani,said. A while later it took more than a dozen floor sweepers to clean the bedroom,where the body was found next to a bed,and the blood-stained floors in the drawing room.

The Pancholis were to join Amrata for her Bangalore tour to meet other relatives. They were preparing to celebrate the New Year with their unmarried daughter in Indore.

The police said it was certain that it was an insider job because nobody came to meet her the previous night. The entry registers at both gates of the huge premises have no mention of visitors to quarters No. 32,the last one in the row of staff quarters.

Though each quarters is independent its difficult for neighbours not to have heard any sound. The post-mortem report did not reveal much except that she could have been murdered after midnight. The police have ruled out sexual assault after the post-mortem.

IG Indore Range Sanjay Rana said,The murderer had not come with an intention to steal or loot. Most stab wounds were found on the chest,thighs and her private parts.

The police said it would be early to connect the brutal wounds to a revenge killing,saying they wont surmise at the murderers motive before getting any concrete clues. They have already got call details of one of the phones used by Amrata,who had completed more than half of her two-year probation period in the department of Organisational Behaviour and HRM.

Some relatives of the Pancholis,however,alleged that it could be a case of professional rivalry or jealousy. It was an assault worse than that of a terrorist, said Dr P C Bhatnagar,the victims uncle. He said his niece was simple but intelligent and wouldnt open the door to strangers. But the police maintained that the killer probably knew her and that there were no signs of forced entry.

The police and the management of the IIM,Indore,refused to link the murder to any professional jealousy but said they empathised with the grieving family.