Lucknow, May 17: An IAS officer posted in Bangalore was found dead in his sleepwear by the roadside in Lucknow today on his 36th birthday, with an injury mark on his chin and bloodstains below his nose.

Senior superintendent of police Deepak Kumar said late tonight that Anuraj Tiwari's post-mortem had identified the cause of death as asphyxia. "So, viscera and blood samples have been preserved for clinical analysis and the heart for a histopathological examination," Kumar said. The samples have been sent to a forensic laboratory.

Anuraj's father alleged his son had been murdered as he was honest and "corrupt officers did not like him".

The body of Anuraj, a 2007-batch Karnataka-cadre IAS officer who was posted as food, civil supplies and consumer affairs commissioner in Bangalore, was found 20 metres from the guesthouse where he had been putting up for the past two days around 6.20am.

P.N. Singh, the vice-chairman of the Lucknow Development Authority who had reportedly booked the room in the state guesthouse on Meera Bai Road for Anuraj, said he and the deceased officer had returned from a mid-career training at the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration in Mussoorie.

Anuraj, who hailed from Bahraich in Uttar Pradesh, had done his BTech (electrical) from Uttar Pradesh Technical University before cracking the IAS. The police identified him from the identity card in his wallet.

The guesthouse where Anuraj had been putting up is in the high-security Hazratganj area, less than 1km from the Assembly, which is in session now.

Anuraj's father B.N. Tiwari said in Bahraich that his son had been murdered. "My son was very honest. Corrupt officers did not like him. They must have somehow got him murdered," Tiwari said.

"He was the youngest of my three sons and had cleared the IAS exam in the first attempt. A year after his selection, he got married. His relations with his wife got strained and this year, he legally separated from her," Tiwari added.

Anuraj's death was raised in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly by the leader of the Opposition, Ram Govind Chaudhary of the Samajwadi Party. He said the death in the heart of the state capital was a "serious matter".

After the post-mortem, Anuraj's family took the body to Bahraich for cremation.