The young woman whose body was found on a pavement at the crossing of AJC Bose Road and Ripon Street on Saturday morning has been identified as Soma Das.

Police said Soma, originally from South 24-Parganas, was staying at a rented house in the Burtolla area in north Calcutta.

"A tailor's tag on the neck of her dress helped us identify the victim," an officer probing the case said.

"It appears a love triangle was behind the murder. We are yet to identify the assailants."

The post-mortem report states that the woman was smothered to death. There was also an injury mark on the neck, which suggests the assailants might have tried to strangle her as well.

"It appears more than one person was involved in the murder," said the officer.

The doctor who conducted the post-mortem told the police that the woman - whose body was spotted in front of Hotel Circular on AJC Bose Road, near Mother House, at 5am on Saturday - was murdered around Friday midnight.

"It appears the woman was killed somewhere else and the body was dumped on the pavement in front of the hotel early on Saturday," another officer involved in the probe said.

Employees of the hotel told the police that they had not seen the body when they closed the main entrance around midnight.

The police found two names written on the victim's forearms. "Apparently, the names were written using a blade long back," the officer said. "On the right forearm was written Rima, and on the left forearm, Samir. Rima was the victim's nickname; we are yet to identify who is Samir."

The dumping of a body on a pavement along a major thoroughfare in the heart of the city has raised concerns over the safety and security of Calcuttans at night. The stretch where the body was found was manned by patrol teams of Park Street police station.