The police said Pinky left her job as a beautician at a parlour two weeks ago. The owner of the parlour, Sanjeev Kumar, had been calling the deceased, asking her to rejoin work. Pinky, however, refused to do so.

The police said the motive behind the murder is not yet clear. “We are investigating the case. So far, it looks like the accused forced Pinky to do immoral things at the parlour. We suspect she left the parlour because of this. We are trying to take down her husband’s statement. He is still in a state of shock,” a senior police officer said.

The police said Kumar went to Pinky’s B block Jehangirpuri home on Sunday night and told her he needed to talk to her. Pinky asked her husband, Surenjeet Singh, who works in a local factory, to join them. They also took their three-year-old adopted son with them.

“Kumar took them to his Santro and asked them to sit inside. Pinky sat on the passenger seat, while her husband and son climbed in the back. They were driving along when a heated argument erupted between Sanjeev and Pinky near the KDR wool factory on the GT Karnal Road,” a senior police officer said.

The police said the accused stopped the car and asked Pinky to step out, claiming that he had something important to tell her. When she did, he took out his pistol and fired three times. Pinky was shot twice in the head, while one bullet went astray.

Kumar then made her husband and son get out of his car and fled the spot. A passer-by called the PCR as her husband was in a state of shock. She was rushed to the Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital, where doctors declared her dead on arrival.

Pinky’s father, Shakti Singh, told Newsline: “My life has been shattered. I was at my home when the incident occurred. I don’t know why Pinky was killed. We will never recover from the pain caused by her death. I don’t know what to do.”