Amrata Pancholi

Bhopal, Dec. 20: Police have detained two IIM Indore security guards in connection with the murder of assistant professor Amrata Pancholi, 32, who was stabbed over a dozen times at her campus quarters on Thursday night.

Officers said the guards were expected to provide crucial leads. They said they were tightening the noose around a man who was known to the victim and was still inside the campus.

The police suspect the murderer is a spurned suitor, out for revenge at a time the victim is believed to have found a prospective groom whom she was about to introduce to her parents.

Pancholi’s parents, who live in Udaipur in Rajasthan, had spoken to her on Thursday night, hours before the murder. In keeping with an earlier plan, they had arrived at her quarters at the institute on Friday morning — to be greeted by a grisly scene.

After reaching Indore by train, they had looked around for her in vain at the station. Then they had taken a taxi to her quarters, flat No. 32 on the campus.

Describing the scene, taxi driver Dharam Narain Dave said: “I dropped her parents and sister at the IIM flat. What I saw was terrible… it was the worst day of my life. I cannot describe how brutal the killing was.”

Pancholi’s relatives have demanded a CBI probe. “We want the truth to come out as soon as possible,” her uncle, Dr C. Bhatnagar, said.

He questioned the security at the IIM and said: “We cannot understand why she was given a flat at the end of the campus.”

A sense of despondency and fear haunts the campus. The areas around the hostels wear a deserted look after sunset.

The hostels are interconnected, mostly built in blocks of three. A night canteen that stays open from 11pm to 5am for the students, offering anything from noodles to parathas, has not had a single customer for the past two nights.

Teachers and students said they were too stunned to react. Pancholi’s neighbours in flats No. 31 and 30 declined comment.

Yogesh Maheshwari, who teaches finance and accounting, said he was not in a position to say anything. Somiya Kapoor, the wife of another teacher, said she had moved in just six months ago and did not know Pancholi too well.