NEW DELHI: The Delhi police on Monday made claimed to have made some headway in the Siddhartha Enclave double murder case involving the lawyer duo of 73-year-old Swarana Mahajan and her 48-year-old daughter Anuratha. They found the Maruti car in which Ms. Anuratha left her house on the fateful Saturday evening and also detained one person in this connection.

Police sources said the brown coloured Maruti car was recovered from Noida on Monday afternoon and its owner was being questioned about his movements on Saturday. It is learnt that the person, who claimed to be an acquaintance of the deceased, had gone to the lawyers' house in connection with some work. The police are verifying his claims. They are also trying to ascertain if he knew the person whom Ms. Anuratha met later and returned in his car.

The security guards posted at the colony gates had told the police on Sunday that the car had entered the colony around 6-45 p.m. Ms. Anuratha left in the car and then returned in another car -- a silver-coloured Maruti -- around 9 p.m. When the guard made queries about the driver, Ms. Anuratha told him that the person was accompanying her.

In less than 10 minutes, the man left the colony.

The bodies of the mother and daughter were discovered only on Sunday morning when their maid Geeta came in for the daily chores.

The police are also probing the property dispute angle. The mother-daughter duo had a house in Jor Bagh where they lived long time ago. The police are trying to ascertain who owned that property now and whether there was more than one claimant to it. The mother and daughter had been living in their Siddhartha Enclave house since 1983. It is learnt that Ms. Mahajan was very close to her daughter and wanted to get the flat registered in her name. Both of them dealt with civil cases.

The police are awaiting the return of Ms. Mahajan's son Sanjeev from the United States. A post-mortem is likely to be conducted either on Tuesday or Wednesday. The police believe that the mother and the daughter were smothered to death after their hands were tied.

Police teams have also been sent to various places in Uttar Pradesh in connection with the incident. The police are also scanning the mobile phone records of the two women to find out who they were in touch with before they were murdered.

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