OST Crime Bureau
Puri, De c 16:

Amit Agarwal, the man who has gone missing since the bodies of a 30-year old woman and her two children were discovered inside a hotel room, has emerged as the prime suspect in the triple murder case that has shaken the pilgrim town.

Amit Agarwal Amit Agarwal

Police sources said the mobile phone of Amit, husband of the woman and father of the two children, has been put on tracking to locate him.

Preliminary investigation suggests that Amit has escaped after killing his wife Ankita (30), daughter Bani (7) and son Divyanshu (4), the sources said adding the victims appear to have been drugged before being strangulated.

The presence of a host of puja material inside the room points to the possibility of it being a case of human sacrifice, a source in the investigating team said.

Amit Agarwal, a resident of Mathura in Uttar Pradesh, had booked Room No 307 in Hotal Zamindar Palace on December 9. He was to have checked out on Sunday. But the room remained closed all day on Saturday.

Hotel sources said no one responded to the door bell when a member of the house keeping staff rang the bell on Saturday. When the room did not open all day, hotel authorities informed the police in the night.

Late on Saturday night, the police sealed the room. The bodies of the mother and her two children were discovered when SP Anup Sahu, in the company of City DSP Sashi Bhushan Satpathy and investigating officer and Sea Beach police station IIC Pravas Chandra Sahu, got the door opened with the master key on Sunday morning. The bodies were found on a mat spread on the bed.

Post mortem has been conducted on the three bodies and a priest of the Jagannath temple who performed puja for the Agarwal family during their stay here was being questioned, police sources said.

Amit’s family members have been informed about the incident over phone. Some members of the family are on their way to Puri, the sources said.