KOLKATA: A 72-year-old former KMC councillor, who had left home for morning walk on Wednesday, jumped off the 11th-floor terrace of Hindusthan Club on Sarat Bose Road at 6.15 in the morning.

Sawarmal Bhimsaria, a businessman by profession, left behind a suicide note, pleading the cops to not start any inquiry against any of his family members. He held only himself responsible for his death.CCTV footage at the club showed that Bhimsaria, an active member of the club for the past 32 years, entered the club at 5.50am, headed straight to the terrace, paced up and down on the terrace for around 12 minutes, before climbing a chair and jump off the terrace around 100 feet below onto the exit ramp of the basement parking lot.

Cops from the Ballygunge police station found his mobile phone, a three-and-a-half-page “suicide note” written in Hindi and his visiting card kept inside a card board folder on the terrace.

“Apparently, it looks like a case of suicide. We have CCTV footage that shows him leaving his Tarachand Dutta Road home near Zakaria street, entering the club and then jumping off the terrace. However, we have started a case of unnatural death and sent the body for post-mortem. The family too hasn’t lodged any complaint of foul play,” said a senior officer at Lalbazar.

Speaking about the note, the cops said, Bhimsaria wrote about some family trouble as well as some financial distress that reportedly drove him to commit suicide.Bhimsaria, along with his wife, daughter, two sons and their families stayed at two 3-bedroom flats on the seventh floor of an old building. Relatives said, he had left home around 5am for a morning walk at Victoria Memorial. “He boarded a yellow taxi. Around 9am, we were informed by the cops that he was dead,” said Ashok Dhanuka, Bhimsaria’s brother-in-law.

Bhimsaria had contested in the 1985 KMC poll on a Congress ticket from Ward 43 and had won. He was a councillor for five years and then lost in the 1990 election. “Since then he did not contest any election. In 1998, when Trinamool Congress was formed, Bhimsaria joined the new party, but he was never a very active worker,” said a neighbour.

The family was into transport business for the past several years. However, of late, Bhimsaria had passed on the responsibility of running the business to his sons. The elder son ran the transport business while the younger son ran the stock exchange business.“He was such a jovial and happy go lucky man. It never crossed our minds that he can take such a drastic step. The news has shocked the entire family and his wife has fallen sick,” said a close relative.

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