When employees of Worldwide Immigration Consultancy -- a branch office of a Canadian company -- went to work in the morning, they found the office locked. ``It was unusual because one of our security guards, Prem Prakash, 27, makes it a point to clean up the place every morning. And he always opens the office by 10. a.m.,'' an employee said.

But today, the employees waited for almost over three hours, hoping that Prakash would turn up any moment. Prakash had the only keys to the office. ``We sent a peon to his house in nearby Raghubir Nagar to check whether he was unwell. But his family said he had left for work as usual in the morning. Then we called up our director Brig (retd) K.S. Sodhi and sought permission to break open the lock. He told us to go ahead.''

Around 1.30 p.m., the employees hired a locksmith, got the lock opened and went into the office. They were shocked: the rooms had been ransacked. The safe had been broken open and Rs 1.25 lakh and a gold coin were missing. But there was still no sign of Prem Prakash.

A little later, when they were trying to ascertains what else had been robbed, the employees spotted blood near a wooden box. They found Prakash's body inside. He had been strangled.

The police suspect that the assailants were Prakash's acquaintances. And the incident probably occurred soon after he reached office today. ``Prakash must have let them inside. And they locked the main door with his keys after killing him and robbing the place. If they were intruders, Prakash probably would have raised an alarm,'' says a senior west Delhi police official.

The police also suspect that more than one person committed the crime. ``But we are not ruling out anyone, including employees of this office. Very few people would have known that such a large amount of money was in the office, especially during the weekend''.