Chennai: Woman engineer found dead in hotel room

Chennai: A 34-year-old woman software engineer was found dead in a hotel room near St. Thomas Mount on Saturday. Swathi Anand, police said had died of dehydration after consuming an excessive amount of alcohol.

Police ruled out a possibility of murder after enquiries with family members revealed that the woman had been an alcohol addict for about two years now. A resident of Nagalkeni near Medavakkam, Swathi lived with her husband, Anand (35) and two children, aged 4 and 1.

She was employed with a software firm in Ramapuram in the past two years before when,  investigations revealed, she was working in the US which is when she is said to have become addicted to alcohol.

On Friday night, Swathi had checked into the hotel on Butt road as part of an office conference. She had informed her family members about this. Meanwhile, on Saturday, housekeeping staff had knocked on her door and since there was no response, they alerted the manager.

Since Swathi didn’t come out of her room for a long time, hotel staff used a spare key to open the room and found the woman lying unconscious with blood oozing from her nose. St. Thomas Mount police rushed to the scene on information and moved the woman to a hospital where she was declared brought dead.

Police quoted family members as saying that the woman was addicted to alcohol. An empty liquor bottle was recovered from the room she was staying in. 

“Since her family members were against her drinking habit, she used to book rooms to indulge in her habit. Even last week, she did the same”, according to a police officer.

Police said that there were no external injuries nor any suicide note recovered from her room. The family members also did not raise any suspicion and have taken the body after autopsy.  Quoting, preliminary medical reports, police said that the woman was dehydrated due to excessive alcohol intake. However, we would be doing a thorough investigation before closing the case, police said.