Dhanbad, June 17: The 20-year-old daughter of a JDU leader from Bihar was found dead at her mother's Railway Colony quarters in Bhaga, around 18km from the Dhanbad district headquarters, on Tuesday morning, with police groping for clues to solve the mysterious case that looks like murder.

On Wednesday, Dhanbad police sent Jyoti Vandna's body, which bore nail marks near the neck suggesting that she might have been attacked by someone, for post-mortem besides lodging an FIR against unidentified persons on the basis of a complaint made by her mother Babita Singh, who works in the Adra division of the railways.

Jyoti, the second of the five children of former JDU Patna district president Abhay Singh, was a Part I postgraduate student at Ramlakhan Singh Yadav College in Patna and had come to spend the summer vacation at Dhanbad, where her mother stays with her three other younger siblings.

On Tuesday morning, she was at home with younger brother Anis Kumar while her mother was away at work and the other two siblings, Golu and Nisha, had gone to study at DAV Model School, Digwadih.

"I went out of the house around 10am to provide tiffin to my mother by locking the front gate. I returned an-hour-and-a-half later along with my mother and found the front gate locked from inside while the rear gate was open. I rushed in to find my sister lying unconscious on the floor of the kitchen," a traumatised Anis said.

The duo immediately rushed Jyoti to a local hospital, where she was declared brought dead.

A police team, led by deputy superintendent of police (DSP) Sindri Vikash Pandey, visited the house and spoke to Anis and other family members of the deceased.

A rope and an earring belonging to the deceased were recovered from near the body.

Police also pressed sniffer dogs into action, but found no lead.

"Circumstantial evidence suggests that the girl had been murdered. But only the post-mortem report can confirm the cause of death," DSP Pandey said.

Satyanand Gupta, officer-in-charge of Jorapokhar police station, said that they were investigating all angles.

"We have not obtained any clue that could have indicated whether any outsider or a family member was involved in the incident. Investigations are on," he added.

Abhay Singh, who arrived at Bhaga from Patna on Tuesday evening, said he had spoken to Jyoti over phone around 8am and she sounded perfectly alright. "I asked her to get a recharge for my mobile phone and there was nothing abnormal in her behaviour," Singh said.