(From top)Raj Kumar Khaitan (file picture),the entrance to the Mott Lane house,the building where he was found dead,the terrace where the body was found

Calcutta, March 13: The body of a garment trader with stab injuries in his chest and stomach was found on the roof of a four-storey building near Jyoti cinema in central Calcutta today under circumstances police find mysterious.

The police said 58-year-old Raj Kumar Khaitan was a resident of Salkia in Howrah and his family ran a garment shop in Chowringhee. He had nothing to do with the house on Mott Lane where he was found dead. Also, the roof where his body was found was locked from outside and residents of the building who have the keys said they had not lent them to anyone.

The body was spotted around 8.30am when a domestic help working in the building unlocked the roof door to hang clothes to dry.

Brother Vishnu said Raj Kumar had left the shop at 6.30pm yesterday. “We shut the shop at 9.30 and went home,” he said. “When Raj Kumar did not return by 11, we called him on his cellphone, but there was no response. We were not worried because my brother sometimes stays away at night and returns in the morning.”

The police are puzzled because the Khaitans do not seem to have anything to do with the Mott Lane building where Raj Kumar’s body was found. “We never knew of this building, have never been there,” Vishnu said.

The residents of the building, too, told the police they had never seen Raj Kumar.

According to the residents, the door to the roof is under lock and key most of the time and only two families — a 50-year-old woman and her son, and a 70-year-old man and his daughter — have the keys to it. Both families have denied giving the key to anyone.

“My maid went up this morning to hang the clothes and saw the body,” said Patsy Ansari, who has one of the keys. “The door to the roof is opened for this purpose only. Otherwise it is kept locked.”

The police suspect that Raj Kumar was with some people he knew before he died. He was possibly in a neighbouring building that houses many offices and shares a common passage with the building in which he was found dead. “Raj Kumar was into drinking and gambling and also had debts,” an officer said. “We have found two empty beer bottles on the roof and suspect Raj Kumar and probably one associate had slipped into the building to have a drink.”

The police said that despite the residents’ claim that the door was always shut, the two probably found the door open and went in.

The police are trying to find out if anyone else had somehow got a duplicate key to the roof.

Patsy said she heard no sound last night that could have “aroused suspicion”.

The police have ruled out the possibility of Raj Kumar having been murdered elsewhere and his body being dumped on the roof. “There would have been a trail of blood had that been the case but there was blood only at the spot where the body was found,” said an officer.