A 25-year-old flower-seller was found murdered inside a market in Tollygunge on Monday afternoon, shortly after it had closed for the day.

The incident occurred at Southern Market, on Deshapran Sashmal Road, just yards away from the Tollygunge police station. The victim, popularly known as Badal, had his throat slit and his body was left covered with blood-soaked jute bags.

A blood-stained knife ? used for cutting large fish ? was found beside the body. Police detained three persons and cordoned off the area where the body was found inside the market.

A police picket was also posted. Forensic experts have been asked for help and the body has been sent for post-mortem.

Monday being a half-day, Southern Market had closed at 2 pm and while most of the stall-owners had left after packing up their items, Badal and a few of his fish-seller friends decided to stay back.

A resident of Canning, in South 24-Parganas, Badal had been selling flowers for the past eight years at the market and had managed to buy a stall for himself three years ago.

?Usually, after the market closed, Badal would pack his jhola and head for the Tollygunge tram depot, where he would sell flowers in the evening. For the past month or so, he had stopped moving out, possibly because of the heat,? said Amal Kanti Dutta, a grocery shop-owner in the market.

On Monday, Badal was last seen around 3.45 pm by a few stall-owners, drinking with his friends in one of the bylanes of the market.

An hour later, some of the stall-owners spotted what looked like a corpse covered with jute bags in a pool of blood. A closer look revealed it was the body of Badal.

The stall-owners immediately alerted others who lived inside the market and around 4.45 pm, the local police station was informed.

Officers probing the case say Badal was possibly murdered following a heated exchange among friends.

?It could be that someone picked up this sharp instrument and in a fit of rage, killed him. Of the three detained, two are yet to come out of their drunken stupor,? said Anuj Sharma, deputy commissioner of police (South).