A senior official of state-owned Bharat Heavy Electrical Limited and his wife were on Monday night found dead in their house in the Shivalik Nagar Colony near the company's unit in Hardwar.

BHEL Deputy General Manager S L Agarwal and his wife Satya, both in their late fifties, were strangulated and asphyxiated in a bucket of water in their house by unidentified persons, Senior Superintendent of Police (Hardwar) Ashok Kumar said.

"The husband was asphyxiated but not strangulated. The wife was both strangulated and asphyxiated," Kumar told NDTV.

The murder was detected around 1900 IST when someone went to Agarwal's house to hand over an invitation card.

Kumar said the murder most probably took place on Sunday night as the couple was last seen by the neighbours on Sunday evening in their compound.

Police suspect the killing to be the handiwork of persons known to the couple.

"There is no sign of forcible entry and there were two glasses of milk in the kitchen," Kumar said.

Nothing in the house had been disturbed and hence, robbery was ruled out, he said.

The deceased couple had three daughters, two of whom reside in Delhi and one in the US, Kumar said.

The postmortem would be conducted on Tuesday, the SSP said.

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