What was first believed to be a chain-snatching incident that led to the death of a scientist in the campus of Chandra Shekhar Azad University (CSA) of Agriculture and Technology in Kanpur now seems to be a clear case of murder.

Initial investigation has made the police believe that the unidentified assailant had wanted to murder Mandvi Singh and chain snatching was not the motive for the offence.

This after police recovered the gold earring, which was plucked from Singh’s left ear, near the site of the crime. “Her relatives informed us that Singh was not wearing a gold chain on Monday. Her gold earring was found near the spot of incident,” Inspector General, Kanpur Range, G L Meena told The Indian Express.

Police said if loot or chain snatching had been the motive of the assailant, he would have taken away the gold earring.

“Singh has been murdered for some other reason and our teams are working on several aspects,” Meena said.

The postmortem report confirm that the assailant first shoved the muzzle of the 315 bore country-made pistol inside Singh’s mouth and thereafter the bullet was shot. “The prima facie evidence indicate that Singh was murdered due to some personal rivalry,” Meena added.

Meanwhile, a contractor, who is constructing some rooms at the CSA’s guesthouse, said the unidentified assailant had been frequenting the campus for the last few days.

“We had spotted him earlier too but no one doubted that he was visiting the campus to murder a staff member,” said Anil Kumar Mishra.

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