The woman, a resident of Avantika Enclave in Mangolpuri, was reported missing on January 2 at Mangolpuri Police Station. According to police, she used to give micro loans to hawkers in the western part of the city on a day-basis and had also loaned some money to the men who killed her.

Initially, when police started looking for her, they found her mobile phone switched off and struggled to find her whereabouts. On January 7, police registered a case under section 365 (abduction) of the IPC and began investigation, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Outer) Harendra Kumar Singh said.

Soon they found that two of the people who had last called her on mobile were at the same location as she was, and based on the finding, apprehended one Mobin. At his instance, police also detained another suspect, Naveen, who joined the investigation Wednesday evening, and at length confessed his involvement in the killing, police said.

Naveen revealed that he and Mobin knew the woman for the last 4-5 years, and she was killed by a third man, Rehan, on the afternoon of January 2 in outer Delhi's Mangeram Park in Mobin's room. At night, the three took her body to Nangloi graveyard and buried it there with the connivance of the cemetery caretaker, the DCP said.

After the confession, police arrested all three and also seized the auto used in the murder. Police have exhumed the body of the victim and sent it for post mortem to see if the woman was sexually assaulted too before being killed, Singh said. According to police, Mobin drives an auto, while Naveen is a tailor and Rehan is a barber.

Police have also identified the fourth accused in the case, the caretaker of the graveyard, as Sayyad Ali. Ali allowed the three men to bury the body in the graveyard in secret and was paid Rs 5,000 by them.