Mumbai police have zeroed down on three auto rickshaw drivers whom they suspect of killing 23-year-old female software engineer Esther Anuhya who hailed from Andhra Pradesh and whose body was found, eleven days after she went missing after alighting at Lokmanya Tilak Terminus railway station on January 5, in the woods near north-eastern suburb Kanjur Marg.

Facing flak from all quarters, Mumbai police desperately tried to cover up its earlier indifference in the case and deployed 250 officers to untangle the case which had them flummoxed.

Though there has been no official admittance or confirmation from the police, it is learnt that the detectives feel that the needle of suspicion points towards the three detained three auto-rickshaw drivers; the investigators believe the trio murdered her while ferrying her to north-western suburb Andheri where Esther, an employee of Tata Consultancy Service (TCS) resided in a hostel.

Incidentally, the pathologists were unable to establish whether sexual assault had taken place during the physical examination of the burnt and decomposed body.

While the autopsy did confirm ante-mortem injuries on the body, the forensics laboratory were unable to establish the probability of sexual assault.

A team of investigators from Mumbai are also camping in Visakhapatnam and Vijayawada to probe other angles as the motive of the murder has not been established so far as a third mobile phone of the murdered girl was found in her hostel room.