Calcutta, July 24 :     Hamhanded handling of the Leena Sen murder case by the city police may well lead to the culprit slipping away from the clutches of the law. The decomposed body of 48-year-old Sen was found in her Mainak building flat in south Calcutta three days after she was gagged to death. However, despite prolonged interrogation of Sen?s husband, her friends and relatives, the police have returned empty-handed. A section of the investigators points out that had the police reacted quicker and picked up vital clues before they were tampered with, they would have been closer to nabbing the culprits. Some of their observations are: n After the discovery of the body, the police seized several items from the apartment, including glasses, bottles of liquor and cigarette stubs. However, they made the ?unforgivable mistake? of not bothering to check the visitors? book maintained at the gate. By the time it dawned on them to do so, three days after the discovery of the body, the person who had paid a visit to Sen?s apartment the day she was murdered had already erased his name from the register. ?A valuable clue was thus lost,? an officer said. n When the visitors? book was finally taken into police custody, no statement on a visitor?s name being erased was taken from the caretaker. ?The caretaker now can say that no name was erased and that the police had done it to cook up a story,? an officer said. The case was handed to the detective department from the local police station five days after the discovery of the body. By then, several trails had dried up. The seizure list prepared by the police is incomplete. The police went back to the apartment on several occasions later to pick up more items. They will not be admitted as evidence in court as they do not form part of the seizure list. Officer-in-charge of the Karaya police station, Satyajit Banerjee, who dealt with the case initially, admitted it could have been better handled. ?That the visitors? book was tampered with should have been mentioned in the statement of the caretaker in-charge of the book,? he said. What makes the case even more difficult to crack is that no one has admitted to seeing the assailant either enter or leave Sen?s apartment. Forensic experts, however, confirmed that Sen was not raped before being murdered.