London: The body of an Indian jeweller, who was abducted and bundled into a vehicle as he left his shop in Leicester, has been discovered in the countryside outside the city.

Police suspect that Ramniklal Jogiya, 74, was murdered most probably as the result of a robbery gone wrong.

Nor is this the only killing that has unsettled the normally peaceable and settled Indian community which makes up the majority of Leicester's ethnic minority population.

Indians in Leicester have been shaken by another murder - that of Kiran Daudia, 46, a Gujarati woman.

Her ex-husband, Ashwin Daudia, 51, has just gone on trial at Leicester Crown Court for strangling her, stuffing her body into a suitcase and dumping it by wheelie bins containing rubbish two streets away from the house the couple had continued to share uneasily despite being divorced.

The couple's two sons, Vivek and Shivam, 26 and 17 respectively, have been giving evidence against their father, who has pleaded not guilty, but referring to him always as "the defendant".

Until the exodus from Uganda in 1971, Leicester, a rundown city, had very few Indian immigrants. Now it is a flourishing place where the ethnic minorities make up more than half the city's 330,000 population. Keith Vaz has been the Labour MP for Leicester East since 1987.

Jogiya, a father of three who had run his jewellery shop, Vama, for 30 years, was filmed on CCTV leaving his shop between 7.30pm and 8pm on Wednesday. The door was later found unlocked.

His body was discovered around 10am on Thursday near a country lane in Stoughton outside the city.

The Indian weakness for gold means women are especially vulnerable during religious festivals or weddings, and so are the jewellery shops along Belgrave Road, nicknamed the "Golden Mile".

"Someone wearing a mask opened the door with the keys and knew exactly how to turn off the alarm," said Milesh Amhta, 56, who runs the imitation jewellery section of Vama.

Detective Superintendent Simon Cure said: "We're working with his family and obviously they're distraught. We're seeking witnesses who were in the area of Belgrave or the Golden Mile between 7pm and 9pm on Wednesday evening, or in the area of Gaulby Lane in Stoughton between 9pm on Wednesday evening and 10am on Thursday morning. We need the public's support to investigate and find the culprit of this murder."