The body of the 46 year old expatriate, who was working as a fuel station supervisor, has been kept at the ROP Hospital in Muscat. ROP on Thursday tweeted that it has arrested six persons in connection with the murder.

An Indian social worker said that there were three wounds on Philip''s neck and he was strangled with a rope. His body was found in a decomposed state in an uninhabited building in Masrooq, 70km from Ibri town.

Philip was contracted by a Nizwa-based firm to work at the petrol pump on the Ibri-Buraimi road from where the suspects looted money and kidnapped him. The deceased''s colleagues have already got in touch with his company for repatriation of his body.

Philip who hailed from Kottayam in the south Indian state of Kerala is survived by his wife and two children. His family left Oman last month.