The highly decomposed naked body of a woman was found in a house situated in a multi-storey building at Headmasters Layout in Chandapura on Monday.
The incident came to light when a neighbour complained of an odour from the locked house and informed the police.
The Suryanagar police broke open the door to find the dead woman and the other occupants of the house missing.
According to the police, a man, identified as Sapan Kumar and aged around 40 from Odisha, had rented the place and was living with the woman.
The house was unattended to, with cigarette butts, liquor bottles, and unused food packets found scatted around.
The police suspect that the woman was sexually assaulted before being murdered. Sapan is presently on the run and his mobile phone is not reachable.
The police have also found that the person through whom Sapan got the flat is also missing. Efforts are on to track down the accused, while the police are waiting for the post-mortem report to ascertain the exact reason behind the death.
