Aarushi and (top) Hemraj

New Delhi, May 16: Fifteen-year-old Aarushi, who loved to sing out loud, was found murdered in her Noida home this morning and police suspect the domestic help had raped the girl after killing her.

“The post-mortem has confirmed that Aarushi Talwar was raped after being murdered,” Noida superintendent of police Mahesh Mishra said tonight. But another police official, who did not want to be named, said the report was inconclusive and it was not certain if the Class IX student had been raped.

Aarushi’s parents were at home when their daughter, who said in her Orkut profile that she was a foodie and loved to sing aloud, was stabbed thrice in the head and once in the neck.

“The parents were sleeping when the murder took place,” Mishra said. “A maid came in the morning and she found the body of the girl on her bed. Her throat was slit.”

Dental surgeons Rajesh and Niranjan Talwar had hurriedly hired Hemraj as their domestic help eight months ago, trusting the word of a previous help who had worked for them for eight years.

Hemraj, who is of Nepali origin, is missing.

“We have his address and some of his close relatives have been picked up,” Mishra said. “The crime appears to have been committed out of rage as the girl’s throat was slit.”

Domestic helps have been involved in several murders in Delhi and its neighbourhood, prompting the police to launch a drive to check their antecedents.

Commissioner Y.S. Dadwal has directed deputy commissioners to launch an “intensive” verification drive, especially in the case of senior citizens living alone.

Servant verification forms can be downloaded from www.delhipolice.nic.in, but officials said the drive is yet to show results.

“The problem is that the number of servants verified is hardly a fraction of the number employed across the capital. Every household in the capital — middle-class and above — employs household helps, but the number of servants verified each year does not go much beyond 10,000-odd on an average,” said an official.

The problem has multiplied with many domestic helps being migrants from Nepal, Bangladesh as well as other states.

Only five days ago, two working women were drugged in Delhi’s Sarvodaya Enclave, allegedly by their domestic help Lucy.

Saloni and Saran Suri, both 24, were found lying unconscious by friends when they broke open the door.

Lucy, who was from Orissa, was hired from a placement agency. But she tore up her verification form before fleeing.

After 18-year-old Badal strangled his 70-year-old employer Nirmal Madan on May 6, the police found a half-filled servant verification form in his house in Amar Colony.