An out-of-work model and former beauty queen was found dead at her Andheri (West) flat on Monday night. The police first registered a case of accidental death.

But the injuries on Bidushi Dash-Barde led them to file a murder case on Tuesday. Barde’s husband found her dead in a pool of blood in their flat. Glass shards were sticking out of her cheek, jaw, chin and neck.

23-year-old Bidushi had been living for the past fifteen months in a rented flat at Manish Nagar Cooperative housing society in Andheri (West) with her 26-year-old husband Kedar, a software engineer. She had worked in a few Tamil films and was Miss Chennai in 2006, before moving to Mumbai after her marriage. Police said she was unemployed.

Kedar left for work at Nariman Point at 7.50 am on Monday. He called Bidushi from work at 9.30 am. She didn’t answer. He called her again and again throughout the day, but got no answer. He returned at 8 pm and got no response when he rang the doorbell. He opened the door with a duplicate key. The lights were off but the TV was on. He then found Bidushi lying in a pool of blood in the passageway, next to a cupboard. One of the cupboard’s shelves was broken, its glass panes shattered.

Shards of glass stuck out of Bidushi’s right cheek, lower jaw, chin and neck. Kedar rushed her to Ambani hospital, taking the landlord Dr Shende’s help. Bidushi was declared dead.

Bidushi was diabetic, Kedar said. She would complain of giddiness and collapse often. She might have fainted and fallen on the shelf, cut herself and bled to death, he said. Police filed an accidental death case on Monday night then.

“Considering the nature of her injuries and circumstantial evidence, we have registered a case of murder against an unidentified person on Tuesday. Her body was sent for a post mortem on Tuesday afternoon to Cooper hospital, reports of which will help ascertain the cause of her death and if she had been murdered,” said Pratap Dighavkar, zonal deputy commissioner of police.

Doctors estimated that Bidushi must have died between 11 am and 12 pm on Monday, of excessive bleeding. Police are now securing CCTV footage. Police have ruled out robbery as the motive as they found nothing missing from the house.

Raju Sandhu, a committee member of the society where Bidushi stayed, said the couple kept to themselves and never interacted with anyone. He added that they were not involved in society activities, but were usually out for work.