‘Will come back on Saturday’: How accused in Delhi HR professional's murder case kept texting his family from his phone

Only when his phone was switched off after the morning of September 8 did the panicked family begin frantically searching for him and reach out to the Delhi police.

“I last saw him on September 6 when we went to Lajpat Nagar to buy a sherwani for him because he was supposed to get married next month. It was odd that he didn’t return home that night after telling us he was going to Gurugram for some work,” said his sister Karishma.

The next day, as the messages came in, there was a slight sense of relief, followed by anxiety – Manchanda had never behaved like this. “It was unusual, but we had no option but to trust him. From September 6 to 8, we received messages from his phone. He would say he's busy and will come home in a few days. We even received a flight ticket message from his phone. He said he was going to Bangalore. On September 10, when his phone was unreachable, we rushed to the police station,” Karishma told HT.

On September 10, a body was fished out of a sewer in Gurugram’s Sector 70, and four days later, the Gurugram police “cremated” the body as that of an “unidentified” man, after an autopsy, even as his family – barely 15 km away – was looking for him.

In Delhi, on September 11, Yuvraj’s family filed a missing person complaint at the Lajpat Nagar police station in Delhi. On September 16, Manchanda’s former colleague Anya Vats and her partner Sanyam Sachdeva were apprehended in Uttarakhand and then arrested.

DCP (southeast Delhi) Vineet Kumar had told HT on Thursday, “We found Manchanda had last spoken to the colleague, Anya Vats. Her mobile phone was also switched off.” Investigators said both Vats and Manchanda worked at another major realty group, but were removed in 2022 due to alleged financial irregularities. Manchanda got a job at another major realty firm as an HR manager, but Vats did not.

“Vats emerged as a prime suspect. During surveillance, we detected a new mobile number being used by the suspect. Further analysis indicated her presence in Uttarakhand. A police team was deputed to Uttarakhand, from where Vats and her partner, Sanyam Sachdeva, were apprehended,” the DCP said.

Police said that questioning them revealed that they allegedly shot Manchanda dead after a heated argument, and they then fled to Uttarakhand.

Jignasa Sinha is a Special Correspondent at Hindustan Times in New Delhi. With more than six years of reporting experience, she covers crime and policing in the national capital. Her beats also include Delhi prisons, the Delhi Fire Services and Delhi courts, while she regularly reports on gender, labour and social justice. Over the course of her career, Jignasa has reported on major criminal investigations, international crime syndicates, high-profile cyber fraud cases, law-and-order developments, protests, disasters and public institutions. Her reporting combines breaking news with in-depth, long form, human interest stories that examine the human impact of public policy, policing and the criminal justice system.