Woman, 22, found murdered in lodge; hunt on for Facebook friend

CHENNAI: A 22-year-old woman was on Thursday night found murdered at a Mylapore lodge where she went to meet a man she befriended on Facebook. There were strangulation marks around her neck.Police who identified the woman as E Nivedhita of Veera Perumal Koil Street suspect she was sexually assaulted before the murder. A special team is now in Bengaluru on the trail of two men who checked into the room she booked.Based on inquiries, police said Nivedhitha, a business administration graduate, left home on Wednesday evening telling her family she was going to meet a friend. She went to a lodge in the Picnic complex on R K Mutt Road, close to her house, and booked room 210 in her name. But she neither checked in nor returned home.Around 8am on Thursday, the staff told police, two men checked into room 210 and that Nivedhitha arrived at 9.30am. That evening, the two men left and the room remained locked. Around 11pm, the room service boy peeped in throught the window and saw Nivedhitha on the bed, apparently dead. He alerted the manager who informed police. A team arrived and sent the body to Government Royapettah Hospital for postmortem.Nivedhitha’s family had lodged a complaint with the Mylapore police. Her father Ethiraj runs an old paper mart in Mylapore, her mother is a home maker while her elder sister works in a private firm.Police said Nivedhitha, who completed her BBA at an Alwarpet college, befriended a man on Facebook about six months ago and kept in contact over phone. “We suspect he was one of the two men who came to meet her at the lodge,” said a senior police officer.He said they had collected from the lodge CCTV footage containing the images of the two suspects.