Police personnel investigate the death of a woman outside her house at Harida village in Balasore

Balasore, Dec. 2: The charred body of a 25-year-old woman, who used to work at a private clinic, was today recovered from her rented house at Harida village on the town outskirts.

Police suspect it to be a case of suicide, though no suicide note has yet been recovered from the spot.

Identified as Jayanti Mallick, a native of Barunsingh in the Khantapara police limits, the unmarried woman had been staying alone for the past one-and-a-half in the mud house with an asbestos roof. They said Jayanti initially used to work as a receptionist at a private hospital and was later shifted to a private clinic near Cinema Square.

A local resident said they had found the mud house on fire and smoke was billowing out of it around 2.30am. As they rushed to the woman’s help, they found the door locked from inside. After breaking open the door, they pulled out Jayanti’s body from under the debris of collapsed walls.

“I saw flames and thick smoke coming out of the house and got to hear loud crackling sounds when I was processing harvested paddy. I raised an alarm and some of us rushed to douse the fire by pouring water. But by then, she had been completely burnt,” said local resident Dibakar Mohanty.

Other villagers said a married man staying in the same locality used to frequently visit her. “She was probably not in good terms with her parents and family members,” said another villager.

The house owner informed the police, who, in turn, called the woman’s parents to identify the body. “The father and brother of the deceased came and identified the body. The body has been sent for post-mortem and other forensic examinations,” said inspector in charge of Sadar police station Jaswant Samal.

A case under unnatural death has been registered, he said. “Since we could not find evidence of any outsiders’ entry to the house, we are probing the case registering it as an incident of unnatural death,” Samal said.