An elderly man living alone in his two-storeyed house in Howrah's Ramrajatala was found murdered with his throat slit on Tuesday evening.

Police said Amal Kumar Gupta, 76, who had retired from government service, is survived by two sons and a daughter. The daughter lives with her family around 4km from Gupta's house in Bakultala. The sons moved out, too, after marriage.

The murder came to light after Gupta's daughter Anindita came to cook for his father.

Police said Gupta had been living alone since the death of wife Kalpana two years ago.

"It does not seem to be a murder for gain as nothing was missing from the house. The assailant did not even touch the wallet lying on the table or the mobile phone. There is every possibility that the assailant was known to Gupta because there was no sign of resistance," said an officer of Jagachha police station.

The murder, he said, could be the fallout of a personal enmity or a property dispute.

"A bonti (a cutter mounted on a piece of wood) was missing from the room. It was probably used to murder Gupta. We are looking for the bonti. The assailant might have taken it away to destroy evidence," the officer said.

Investigators suspect Gupta was killed around 5pm on Tuesday and the assailant left through the front door.

"It seems Gupta had opened the door himself and let the assailant in. The killer must have been known to him," the officer said. As the victim was lying with his face down, it seems he was attacked from behind.

Anindita, who used to visit her paternal home twice daily to cook for her father and look after him, said she found the main door latched from outside when she turned up around 7.30pm on Tuesday.

"I opened the latch and on entering the room found my father lying on his face. The floor was soaked in blood. I immediately alerted my husband," she said.

The daughter said she and her brothers had employed a domestic help for their father after the death of their mother. "The help used to stay in the house round-the-clock. He left the job in July 2014. We employed another help, who worked barely for a week before leaving the job. Since then I used to cook everyday for my father," Anindita said.

Gupta's younger son Amitava said the family was "clueless" about who could have murdered their father. "He always avoided controversy. Police asked us who do we suspect. We failed to name anyone," Amitava said.

Gold haul

Gold weighing 993.6g and worth Rs 26.23 lakh was recovered from three fliers at Calcutta airport on Wednesday morning after the trio from Bangkok.

Later in the day, a man on his way to Doha with forged documents that would allow him to work there was arrested at Calcutta airport.

Immigration officials first detained the passenger, Safic Shekh, a resident of Canning in South 24-Parganas, and after confirming that the documents were fake, handed him over to police. According to the immigration officials, Shekh confessed to have paid Rs 18,000 to a tout for the forged documents.