LUCKNOW, Aug. 9 -- The death of two men in seemingly unexplained circumstances in Lucknow this week was initially thought to be natural by police but the post-mortem changed the course of the investigation in two separate cases, revealing alleged liquor-fuelled assaults and fatal head injuries, turning both incidents into murder cases.

One man was found dead on the rear seat of a locked car at Saleh Nagar under the Ashiana police stations after residents noticed a foul smell and the other lay in an empty plot in Bakshi Ka Talab with no obvious external injuries.

Following a similar investigative trail in the two cases with differing circumstances, police went back to the hours before the deaths, pulled CCTV footage, analysed digital and...