According to Deputy Commissioner of Police (North) S.N. Srivastava: ``The post-mortem report was found to be inconclusive. The samples have now been sent to the Forensic Science Laboratory for further testing.'' The only facts that the post-mortem report states with surety are the immediate cause of death and the time of death. Facts which the police already know. Facts which give the police no additional leads in the case.

At around 2 p.m. on December 1 the woman was found lying unconscious on Mall Road by Police Control Room van staff, who rushed her to the Bara Hindu Rao Hospital and got her admitted there. Approximately an hour later her blood-splattered body was found strangulation marks on her neck, head covered with mud and clothes in a complete state of disarray. What happened to her between the time she was sent from the casualty to the emergency ward, and, how did she die? Neither the police nor the hospital authorities can tell. And while an initial autopsy pointed towards murder and rape, there are no answers to be found in the post-mortem report.

Doctors say that the woman was admitted in the casualty ward in an unconscious state, and was not responding to external stimulation. However, she did react to an ammonia test and even gave the attending doctor her name and address.

With this stage over, she was next sent to the emergency ward on the second floor for further tests. But the doctors there discovered that even the basics had not been covered in casualty: Her stomach had not been washed, the first test which should be conducted to rule out poisoning. So she was referred back to casualty. She never reached there.

Some people in the hospital claim to have seen her being taken to the third floor by the ward boy. The door to the terrace is always locked, so the person who took her there was obviously someone who was familiar with the hospital and had access to the keys.

But the post-mortem report does not positively state whether the 25-year-old committed suicide or whether she was pushed. According to Additional DCP-I (North) Anita Roy, ``We even tried the dummy test to determine whether she had been pushed or whether she jumped. But it failed as the dummy was too heavy. We will be conducting another similar test this week.''

Both the suicide and murder theories have been doing the regular rounds of the hospital. Ruling out the suicide theory, some of the staff members say that the terrace door is always kept locked so she wouldn't have any access. They added that it would have been impossible for her to walk up there, given the state she was in.

Other staff members insist that it must have been the ward boy, as he was the only one who was with her from the time she was brought out of the casualty ward and was being taken to the emergency ward. His alleged confession notwithstanding, there is nothing to conclusively link him with the crime.

The woman's husband has alleged that she was raped and then killed to destroy the evidence. He also said that her jewellery was missing, all the while alleging that the case was being hushed up by the hospital authorities and the police. But he can't answer what she was doing in an unconscious state on Mall Road. And if she was raped, the possibility of it happening before she was brought to the hospital cannot be ruled out.

The answers can only be found in the Forensic Science Laboratory report, which is expected later this week.