Man from Mumbai deepens Neelima mystery

Minutes before her death on Tuesday, Infosys employee Neelima Yeruva received a call from a man and in fact, had a heated argument with him.

Later, she sent him an SMS. Half an- hour later, she was found dead in the parking lot of Infosys. The fresh leads emerged Friday even as the police were groping in the dark unable to conclude whether Neelima had committed suicide or was murdered. The mystery man who called Neelima hails from Vijayawada and works in Mumbai. Though the police are tight-lipped about his identity, sources told Express t h a t h i s name was Prashant.

“Neelima received a call from a person around 9.30 pm on Tuesday. We are trying to obtain call details and break the password of her e-mail account. Once we do it, we may get some clues,’’ Madhapur DCP T Yoganand said. However, sources confirmed that the cops had already obtained Neelima’s call details and accessed her mails. The DCP also clarified that they had not detained anyone so far.

‘’We are investigating the case from various angles,’’ he said. Experts from the Crime Investigation Department (CID) are assisting the Cyberabad Police to unravel the mystery. Neelima’s parents have alleged that their daughter was murdered. However, preliminary report of doctors, who conducted the autopsy, reportedly stated that “it appeared to be a case of suicide.”

Since it is inconclusive, the sleuths sent Neelima’s viscera for examination to get the correct picture. With the case attracting a lot of media attention, the police sought to put speculation to rest.

Addressing a press conference here, DCP Yoganand clarified that they had responded as soon as they received information about Neelima’s death.

“We found her hand bag on the 10th floor while her footwear was found on the seventh. We suspect she fell from the seventh floor of the 15-storeyed multi-level parking lot,’’ he said and released CCTV footage provided by Infosys.

In the video, she could be seen entering the office and swiping her ID card around 8.40 p.m. Around 9 pm, she entered into building no 18 and 19 and came out. At 10.29 pm, she went to the parking lot.

“Security guard P S Ramesh, who was posted near the parking lot, heard a loud sound. He rushed inside and found Neelima lying in a pool of blood on the ground. He alerted the security officer of the company and Neelima was shifted to a hospital. We could not alert her parents soon after the incident took place as her mobile was locked. We found a slip in her hand bag in which she scribbled the mobile numbers of her mother Rani and husband Suresh.  Police called them and broke the tragic news to them,’’ the DCP explained.

Asked about the delay in contacting Neelima’s parents, he replied that it was because of the non-availability of their mobile numbers.

“It was only after several hours that her hand bag was opened and the slip containing the numbers was found,” he claimed. Neelima joined Infosys in 2006 and got married to Boyapati Suresh Reddy, a mobile phone company dealer, in 2009. She went to USA in 2011 on project work and returned to the city on leave on July 21.