The Crime Branch on Tuesday detained a South Delhi-based woman on suspicion of plotting both her husband and father’s abduction, respectively five and three years ago.

Police sources today said the woman, Neeti Sharma, in her mid-forties, had lodged missing cases in both instances: at East of Kailash police station five years ago when her husband, Sunil Sharma, went missing; and at Lajpat Nagar police station two years ago after her father went missing.

Sharma and her husband stayed with her father, a government official, in the latter’s house in Lajpat Nagar-III, the police said.

Police officials said Sharma was detained on Tuesday after her phone call records were examined and evidence was collected, purportedly linking her with the double-abduction plot. She was kept in Lajpat Nagar police station on Tuesday night and was shifted to the Special Operations Squad of Crime Branch in Sunlight Colony on Wednesday.

She is undergoing interrogation at present.

A senior officer said the Lajpat Nagar police could find no trace of either person even weeks after taking on the investigations. The case was then transferred to the Delhi Police’s Crime Branch.

“Neeti Sharma came under the scanner after police teams intensified their investigations,” the senior officer said. “Initially, we worked on a remote suspicion that she could have been involved in the conspiracy along with others. A technical surveillance was then mounted and details were called in.”

She was detained on the basis of those surveillance “details”, sources said.

The motive, a police source said, could be acquiring her father’s property in the prime South Delhi location.

Neither the police nor her neighbours could elaborate on what her husband, Sunil Sharma, did to earn a living but police sources said the family ran a boutique on the ground floor of their house in Lajpat Nagar-III. Neeti and Sunil Sharma have a 15-year-old daughter, neighbours said.

“Her husband went missing under mysterious circumstances some five years back,” a neighbour said, “and a further shock came when we were told her father, too, had goner missing three years later. It puzzled us no end, for both were real gentlemen — soft-spoken and never the ones to look for trouble.”

Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime Branch) Amulya Patnaik confirmed that Neeti Sharma had been detained but refused to divulge further information.

An FIR (number 20/09) has been lodged in connection with the case with the Crime Branch and further investigations are on.

“We have detained a few persons and are likely to arrest them,” said a senior police officer, who did not want to be named for he is not hierarchically superior enough to interact with the media. “Nothing much can be disclosed at this point as we are looking into the broader perspective of this case.”