Elderly woman’s body found at Deer Park lake, cops suspect suicide

NEWDELHI:The body of a 65-yearold woman was found floating inside the lake at District Deer Park in south Delhi’s Hauz Khas village area on Friday morning -- the same spot where a woman was allegedly raped on Sunday night.

Veermati, a resident of Hauz Khas village, had reportedly gone to the area for a walk around 9 am and was found dead at 10:40 am.

A PCR call was made by a person who came for a jog to the park. “We rushed to the spot and found the body inside the lake. We were told she was last seen walking on the path next to the lake around 9 am. Her body was found an hour later. We fished out the body from the lake and sent it for post mortem examination,” a police officer said.

Veermati’s son Ashok Kumar told the police that she often went to the park for a walk but on Friday she took longer than usual.

When he was planning to go check on her, he got a call from one of the locals, saying that she was taken to the hospital by the police.

“He said Veermati went for a walk after a week as she was unwell,” a police officer said. Virmati’s husband, who died two years ago, was a Delhi Transport Corporation employee.

The police suspect it to be a case of suicide. But her son told the police that she had no reasons to take her life.

“There are no visible injury marks on her body. We suspect either she slipped inside the lake while feeding the ducks and drowned or she committed suicide. We have sent her body for a postmortem examination and initiated an inquiry into the matter. A case will be registered once the cause of death is clear,” a senior police officer said.

The police are scanning CCTV footage of the park to map the route the woman took.

“We need to trace the route the woman took inside the park before she died. We have accessed the footage from the area and are examining it to get clues,” a police officer said.