Bhubaneswar, May 29: Police today recovered the body of a 20-year-old youth hanging from the ceiling of an asbestos room in Gandhi Market area at Nayapalli.

The deceased has been identified as Binoy Mandal (20) of South 24 Parganas district in Bengal. Three roommates of the youth have been detained on suspicion and are being interrogated. These youths were identified as Supriya Maiti (25), Gurupada Bhuyan (23) and Deba Kumar Das (25). All of them are from Bengal.

According to house owner Mangu Behera, he got to know about Mandal’s suicide from his roommates this morning. He had informed the police, who rushed to the spot.

Behera said these four youths had been staying in that room for the past 20 days. They were working with a tent house at the Indradhanu Market. “I knew the tent house owner who had approached me to give these youths a room on rent. However, today when I woke up around 8.30am, I was informed that one of them had hanged himself,” he said.

Police said when they had entered the room for verification, the smell of beer was coming from that room. They also found Mandal’s roommates to be drunk. Sources said Mandal’s body, which was hanging from the ceiling with a towel, was touching the ground and a chair was lying beside the body.

“As these youths were found drunk, we have detained them on suspicion,” said a police officer. The neighbours said they had seen Mandal in the morning. But, they were surprised when they came to know he had committed suicide. Mandal’s roommates said he committed suicide, when they were not at home. The police have registered an unnatural death case and are waiting for the family members of the deceased to come.

“We have sent the body to Capital Hospital for post-mortem. As his family members have not reached yet, we have kept the body in the hospital’s morgue,” said a police officer investigating the case.