July 5: Rajat Sarkar, the Trinamul councillor of Ward 2 in Howrah, was found lying in a pool of blood on the premises of a hotel in Puri this morning.

Initial investigations revealed Sarkar, 43, was drunk and he fell off the hotel rooftop, police said.

Sarkar, who was the chairman of Howrah's borough I, was in Puri with six of his friends for Rath Yatra, an officer of Howrah police station said.

"He had checked into a hotel in the Sea Beach police station area. His friends were in another hotel," the officer said.

In a CCTV footage, Sarkar was seen leaving his room 304 on the third floor and heading towards the rooftop around midnight yesterday, the police in Puri said.

"He appeared drunk... he could barely walk," an officer of Sea Beach police station said.

The three-storey hotel is under construction. So, the roof doesn't have a parapet, the officer said.

"It seems Sarkar fell off the roof. The hotel guards found him lying on the ground this morning. He had multiple fractures. He was declared dead at hospital," he said.

Sarkar, a trader by profession, was into supplying construction materials.

He used to organise an annual fair in the Salkia area, an officer of Salkia police station said. "He became rich in a short time."

P.S. Ray, one of his friends, said: "We visit Puri on the occassion of Rath Yatra every year. We reached Bhubaneswar by air on Sunday night and then headed for Puri. He stayed by himself because he wanted to be close to the temple."

The hotel guards told the police that Sarkar had appeared drunk when he returned to the hotel around 12.30am.

Cops found a bottle of whisky in his hotel room. He was probably drinking because the bottle is almost empty, the police said.

Cops handed over his body to his relatives after a post-mortem.