Retired scientist’s kin searched for 36 hrs only to find her dead

NEW DELHI: The kin of Roop Lata, a 72-year-old retired scientist who was found murdered near Sarita Vihar, had spent 36 hours frantically looking for her. She had gone missing on Friday after boarding a bus from Mahipalpur where she had gone to celebrate Bhai Dooj with her brother.
Her sister, Sangeeta Kumar, said Lata’s brother and his father-in-law had seen her off at the bus stop. “We would often worry about her due to her age, but she insisted on travelling by bus or metro.She was anaemic too,” Kumar said.
Lata had left Mahipalpur around 6.30pm with the promise to call them when she reached home. But when they tried calling her around 9pm, her found was switched.
“Initially we thought her phone was out of reach, but for hours it went switched off. We got worried and asked her neighbours to check on her. They found the door of her Taimoor Nagar apartment was locked. After looking for her in the locality, we decided to go to New Friends Colony police station. The police told us to approach Vasant Kunj police station instead,” Kumar said.
On Saturday, the family members printed missing posters of her and put those up. Kumar’s sister, Ritu, also travelled in buses on the route taken by Lata, and the family even planned on going to Shahbad Dairy where the bus terminates.
“None of the drivers recalled seeing my sister and instead asked me travel to the depots at IGI airport to look for the operators who were driving on the day of the incident. But even at the depot nobody could provide any clue,” Ritu said.
They also tried checking CCTV feeds. “We didn’t think she could have been attacked by someone and were hoping to find her at some hospital or at someone’s house,” Kumar said.
It was only on Sunday that the family got word from Sarita Vihar police station, asking them to check an unidentified body on ZIPNET. They couldn’t identify the clothes.
Lata lived along at a government quarter as she was unmarried. Two of her sisters and her brother stay in Delhi while the rest of the family lives abroad. In fact, the siblings had planned a trip to one of their sisters staying in Australia next month and had applied for travel papers. “Our nephew had graduated there and we all wanted to attend the ceremony,” Ritu said.
After retiring from NIC, Lata cared for her parents who died two years ago. Lata had been attacked twice by snatchers, but her family doesn’t suspect the involvement of anyone known to her.