New Delhi, Feb 22 (PTI) Fondly called 'Panditji' by locals, 75-year-old Satish Bhardwaj, who was found dead with an injury to head in his house on Wednesday, had been planning to go to Kashi Vishwanath Temple in Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh with his friends in the coming days, his daughter said.

Bhardwaj was allegedly murdered during a robbery at his residence in south Delhi's Freedom Fighter Enclave.

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"We got to know about the incident Wednesday morning and reached here. My husband, who has a business, was the last person from our family who met my father. He was nearby when he met him on Tuesday just to check on him," Yamini Sharma, a daughter of Bhardwaj, said.

"He was very religious and was planning to go to Kashi Vishwanath Temple and other places with his friends. My mother had died in 2009 and my father was living here at Freedom Fighter Enclave in south Delhi," she said.

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Sharma said that her father, a retired engineer from MCD, was socially active and liked helping people of the society.

"My one brother is a brigadier in Indian Army and another is a software engineer who lives in USA. The society has a guard for the day, but none for the night. On the other floor of the house, there were tenants who recently left the place, following which we renovated the whole house.

"They were very close to our family. My father did not have any jewellery or other valuable item in the house. He only had around Rs 10,000 cash," Sharma said.

Ram Prasad, who is responsible for operating booster pumping station of the society, said he saw Bharadwaj last evening.

"I saw Bhardwaj, whom I used to call 'pandit ji', on Tuesday evening around 7 pm when he was going to a medical shop. I greeted him and asked about his health. He was socially very active and was the in-charge of the society," said Prasad, working in the society for the last 15 years.

Neighbours said police do patrol in the area but only on the main road. "We have no idea how many CCTV cameras are installed in our society."

Bhardwaj was found in a pool of blood with all rooms on his floor ransacked, police said.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)