KOLKATA: The mysterious death of a 24-year-old management student from one of the country’s premier management institute whose body — with his throat slit — was recovered from one of Kolkata’s most prominent hotels has thrown up a number of questions for police. The incident was reported around 2.30am on Saturday.The body of the victim, Harsha Bhalani, was found inside the washroom of room number 1407 on the fourth floor of the Esplanade hotel. He was found lying inside the bathroom with deep neck injuries and a blood-soaked knife beside him. Forensic experts said the doors to the room and the bathroom were locked from inside. Harsh had checked into the hotel on Thursday morning.Cops said prima facie circumstantial evidence point to suicide. However, no suicide note was recovered. “We will not rush into conclusions. All angles, including murder, will be looked into. We are awaiting the post-mortem report,” an officer from the New Market police station said. Cops asked the forensic experts to go through CCTV footages to ascertain the last spot where he was seen. “There are no entry/exits in that room except the main door. There was no sign of the presence of a second person. There were no struggle marks either,” a cop said.Harsha, a student of XLRI, Jamshedpur , hailed from Rajkot in Gujarat . He had checked in around 11.30am on Thursday, stating that he was in Kolkata for some personal and professional work. Before joining XLRI, Harsha had graduated from Bengaluru and had worked with a major app-cab facilitator in a senior position.According to the hotel management, they tried to contact Harsh, but found his room locked. The management said they were not unduly worried as several guests prefer to have food from outside. However, when his father Prabhudas Muljibhai Bhalani and other family members failed to contact him all through Friday, they asked the hotel for help. His friends and college principal, too, contacted the hotel.The hotel management then used a master key to open the door and found Harsh lying unconscious. Police said Harsha’s parents have been informed. “They might be helpful in ascertaining certain information. We have seized the victim’s laptop,” an officer said.A team from the detective department, too, visited the spot to check the possibility of a homicide.Cops said he had a only bag when checking in. Hotel managers said that he had checked in alone and had no visitors. Staffers couldn’t conclude much from the CCTV footages. They told cops that Harsh did not even go out during his stay.“We tried contacting him initially. Failing to reach him two housekeepers, a manager and a security guard went to check on him. They opened his room using a master key around 1:30am. They found the bathroom locked from the inside. We called up hotel technicians to open the bathroom door and found the guest dead,” a hotel staffer said.

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