Police on Tuesday recovered three bloodstained knives from the house of the in-laws of slain Charulata Mahuwar.

The decomposed body of the woman, who was working in a senior position at a nationalised back, had been found on Monday from a house on Kanti factory road in southeast Patna.

Family members, along with her two-and-a-half-year-old child, were missing at that time.

Police investigations have brought to the fore the brutality of the crime, suspected to have been committed by the woman's husband, Mritunjay Deo Saket and other family members.

"Multiple stab marks on the woman's body narrate the brutality of the crime. Recovery of a pair of bloodstained trousers suggests that after committing the crime the murderer changed clothes before escaping from the crime scene," said one of the officers investigating the case.

Charulata was learnt to have gone to Bangalore on a three-month training programme after she passed the bank PO examinations recently. Charulata had returned to Patna on June 30 and joined the nationalised bank in a senior position.

Another police officer said: "An FIR has been lodged against a total of seven persons, which includes her husband Mritunjay, his parents and brother apart from three other members of the family. Charulata's father-in-law works in a nationalised bank in Gujarat. The police, however, suspect that during the time of the murder, her husband, in-laws and few other relatives were present in the house and involved in the crime."

"The child of Charulata is missing too and the police strongly suspect that Mritunjay and his family members, who are absconding, have taken the child along. While none of them has been arrested till now, raids are on in many places, especially, in the East and West Champaran districts. The police have come to know that Mritunjay had come to Motihari on Sunday but left immediately."

Mritunjay's ancestral house is in Motihari in East Champaran district, sources said.

Sarita Mahuwar, the mother of the deceased, had said yesterday that she had received a phone call from her daughter on Friday last week and during the conversation, Charulata had said that she was being physically and mentally tortured and that she could be killed anytime. Thereafter, her mobile was found switched off.

"The post-mortem report and the report of the forensic science team will be able to ascertain the time when she was killed. The reports are awaited. The neighbours have told the police that the woman was subject to torture frequently. Many a time, the neighbours had to intervene with the quarrel spilling on the street. The motive, though unclear, indicates two things - a suspicion of the husband that she was in a relationship outside marriage and an inferiority complex on the part of the husband since Charulata was a senior bank employee and he used to run a medicine shop. However, Charulata's family has lodged a dowry case and all angles are being probed," said the officer.