A 24-year-old taxi driver attached with an IT company in Chandigarh was reportedly strangulated to death and dumped on the Chandigarh-Ambala National Highway near Bhankerpur village in Dera Bassi on Tuesday.

The mouth of Kapil Dev, a native of Kangra in Himachal Pradesh, was found gagged and his hands tied with a cloth with strangulation marks visible on the throat, Station House Officer (SHO) Samar Vineet Dhawan told Newsline.

Dev had gone with Harvinder Singh, an executive of a company in IT Park, Chandigarh, to Shimla in Ford Ikon car on Monday. After dropping Singh, Dev had left for Chandigarh at 9 pm on Monday but had not returned till morning, forcing his employer Rajpreet Singh of Sector 40-A, Chandigarh, to begin a hunt for him, the SHO said.

On Tuesday evening the police found a body near Ghaggar bridge in Bhankerpur, which was later identified. Dev’s cab was found abandoned on the highway near Panipat in Haryana. A police party from Dera Bassi left for Panipat after receiving the information to recover the vehicle. Police have lodged a murder case under Section 302 of the IPC against unidentified people.

The body has been sent for postmortem, which will be conducted on Wednesday to establish the exact cause of death, added the SHO.