Manish Agarwal’s home in Dum Dum. Picture by Sanjoy Chattopadhyaya

Manish Agarwal was strangled to death and then dumped at Dhapa, a preliminary report of the post-mortem has suggested.

The 24-year-old from Dum Dum was possibly murdered within 24 hours of his abduction on February 21 afternoon, said officers of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), which took over the probe on Friday.

The sleuths feel the injuries on Manish’s hands could have been caused while the assassins were dragging his body.

“We are trying to piece together various information about Manish’s professional and personal life. It’s difficult to comment now about the course of the probe,” said P. Nirajnayan, the special inspector-general of the CID.

The student, who was to sit for his CA finals, was last seen leaving a firm where he was conducting an audit. One of his friends, a resident of Howrah, saw Manish walk towards Allen Park around 5.30pm, an hour after he had switched off his cellphone.

On Friday, officers from Tiljala police station met their counterparts at Shakespeare Sarani and collected details of the missing diary, lodged by Manish’s father Shankarlal Agarwal.

“We are also trying to find out if Manish used to frequent discotheques in the city. He might have been familiar with some women, who are regular at the discotheques,” said an officer of Tiljala police station.