Calcutta, Aug. 25: A 27-year-old man was found dead today outside a Park Street sari shop where he worked.

Police said Bipul Mittal might have committed suicide by jumping off the 11-storey building — Poddar Point on 113, Park Street — which houses the shop on the ground floor. But they are not ruling out murder.

Mittal, who had been working for Sankar Selection Private Limited for the past year-and-a-half, had injuries on his right chest and armpit and his head was smashed at the back.

Sporting a yellow T-shirt and biscuit-coloured trousers, Mittal lay with his face up

“It is still too early to say anything conclusively and we have sent the body for post-mortem. In the morning, he was sent to get some money, around Rs 70,000, from someone living adjacent to the building. That money was found intact in his pocket,” said Jawed Shamim, the deputy commissioner, south.

Mittal’s mobile phone was, however, missing and had been switched off.

“Strangely, although the place is usually crowded, no one seems to have seen the victim either falling from an elevation or being pushed off. It appears that the incident took place around 1.45 in the afternoon,” Shamim said.

A resident of Kestopur, Mittal worked with his brother at the sari shop owned by Prahlad Gupta, a distant relative.

He had recently started helping out at another sari shop on the same floor owned by Anil Santhalia, with whom Gupta has a tie-up.

“Around 10.55 this morning, I received a call from him (Mittal) saying he had opened the shop. I just can’t understand what happened after that. He was unmarried and I don’t think he had problems with anyone,” Santhalia said.

The police said Mittal had been pulled up at Gupta’s shop a few days ago for sending a parcel to a wrong address. The police are probing if that had triggered depression in him.