Journalist found shot dead in car

Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI: A 25-year-old woman journalist, Soumya Viswanathan, working with TV news channel Headlines Today, was found shot dead in her car under mysterious circumstances at Vasant Kunj here in the early hours of Tuesday.

The motive behind the murder is not yet clear.

Around 3-55 a.m. in the middle of the night the police received a call from a passer-by about an accident on Nelson Mandela Marg. A Police Control Room team reached the spot and found a damaged Maruti Zen car lying near the central verge of the road. There were skid marks suggesting that the vehicle had dragged for some distance before ramming into the central verge and coming to a halt. The headlights were on and the right front tyre had burst.

Circumstantial evidence initially suggested that the driver had lost control over the wheel after the tyre burst, following which the vehicle hit the central verge. The police found a young woman lying unconscious on the driving seat. She was rushed to a nearby hospital where she was declared dead. Blood was oozing from the right side of her head.

The police and her parents were initially under the impression that it was a case of accident. “However, we decided to conduct a post-mortem to ascertain the cause of death. And when the skull was opened, a bullet was found lodged in the head,” said a police officer.

The news about Soumya being shot dead came as a complete shock to her family.

Enquiries at her office revealed that she had left for her Vasant Kunj C-Block home around 3 a.m. on Tuesday. Around 3-30 a.m. she told her father M. K. Viswanathan over the phone that she would reach home within ten minutes.

“The office staff said they saw her leaving alone, but we are trying to confirm whether someone else was travelling with her in the car. As the bullet has been found lodged in the head, it appears that she was shot at from some distance, probably from outside the vehicle. The side-window of the vehicle was found shattered,” said a police officer.

A team of forensic experts visited the spot and examined the vehicle for clues. They found dents on the right side of the vehicle. The police are trying to find out if someone chased her in another vehicle, hit her car in a bid to stop her and then shot her. “We are investigating all possible angles, including involvement of someone close to her,” said the police officer, adding that she was probably shot while she was driving.

A student of Carmel Convent, Soumya completed her Bachelor’s in Journalism from Delhi University’s Kamla Nehru College after which she did a post-graduate diploma course from the Indian Institute of Mass Communication at Dhenkanal in Orissa.