The decomposed body of a man, who had checked into a hotel on Rafi Ahmed Kidwai Road on Wednesday, was found hidden inside the storage of the bed in the room on Friday morning after the next guest who had checked into the same room complained of an “unbearable stench.”
The man is suspected to have been killed by two men who had accompanied him while checking in, police said.
A murder case has been started by Park Street police station. “The preliminary postmortem report said that the cause of death was strangulation,” said an officer of Park Street police station.
The police said the deceased person — later identified as Rahul Lal, 26, from Collin Lane in Taltala — had checked into room number 302 of Hotel AlBurj International on October 22 along with two men.
“The hotel officials said they wanted the room for a few hours. Around 11pm, two of them checked out of the room. On being enquired about the third person, they reportedly told the hotel staff that he had already left,” said an officer of Park Street police station.
The unsuspecting hotel staff allowed the two guests to leave.
On Thursday, a family checked into the hotel and was allotted the same room.
After sometime, they called the room service and complained of the stench.
“The hotel staff who went to attend to their complaint used a room freshener to contain the smell. A superficial search of the room did not reveal anything,” said the officer.
On Friday morning, the stench returned, and this time the guests insisted on a thorough check of the room.
“An employee found that the stench was coming from inside the bed. The box storage was opened only to find a body inside,” said an officer.
On checking the records, it was found that Lal had a previous track record of committing petty crimes.
The names of the two suspects have been taken from the hotel’s register. However, none of them had been captured till Friday evening. The motive behind the murder was also unclear.
The police have sought the CCTV footage of the hotel to identify the accused by their faces.