It was a week later that a relative of Singh’s who works with the Delhi Police informed him of a body that had been fished out of a canal in Rohini.

A rakhi tied by his sister helped the family of a senior vice-president of a private bank identify him at a Delhi hospital — five days after his body was fished out of a canal in Rohini.

The victim, Dheeraj Ahlawat (38), had gone missing on August 5 while he was taking a stroll outside his home in Gurgaon’s Sector 46. In the FIR lodged the following day, his father Raj Singh said Dheeraj was taking a walk outside his home with a friend around 7 pm.

Speaking to The Indian Express, Singh said, “His friend, who lives in Sector 45, went home after a while. I sent our help to check on my son, who told me he was talking on the phone. When he did not return even around 8 pm, we checked again and found he was not outside the house. We called both his numbers, they were switched off.”
Police sources confirmed that both phones had been switched off by 8.02 pm, with Dheeraj’s last recorded location being near Unitech Cyber Park in Sector 39.

It was a week later that a relative of Singh’s who works with the Delhi Police informed him of a body that had been fished out of a canal in Rohini on August 7. “We identified our son because of the rakhi he was wearing, which one of his four older sisters had tied on Raksha Bandhan… and the structure of his body,” said Singh.

Police said a three-member Special Investigation Team (SIT) was formed on Monday to probe the case. “The FIR that was lodged on August 6 has been updated to include charges of murder and kidnapping after the body was found. The matter is under investigation and efforts are on to identify the accused and ascertain what happened,” said ACP (Crime) Preet Pal Singh.

Dheeraj is survived by his wife and two children, aged two and six. The couple had been married for eight years. They had been living with Dheeraj’s parents and he was the sole breadwinner.

“He was very soft spoken and had no conflict with anybody that we know of, even his colleagues told us positive things about him. We suspect he was kidnapped and murdered,” said his father.