The hotel where the body was found on Monday morning. Picture by Prabin Khaling

Gangtok, Dec. 9: A man was found murdered in a hotel room here this morning with his face disfigured beyond recognition and the right ear chopped off.

Police are looking for another man who had checked into the hotel on Saturday night with the deceased person. The investigators said the hotel hadn’t collected any identification proof from the duo and suspected that the address given by them was wrong.

The hotel, Pema Dzong, is located at Nam-Nang Road, a few metres away from MG Marg. The body was lying on a bed with blood all around. The deceased man was in an yellow T-shirt and a brown inner.

The East Sikkim superintendent of police, Manoj Tewari, said: “It seems that the murder had been carried out after a plot. The neck of the man was slit and the face is completely disfigured with a sharp knife so that he cannot be recognised. The right ear of the person has been chopped off and is missing.”

Tewari said the hotel employees were being interrogated and the motive behind the murder could be established only after the culprits were arrested. He added that a forensic team had collected evidence from the room.

The investigators couldn’t find a wallet or shoes of the murdered person from the room. A sharp knife and two empty liquor bottles were recovered from the room. The police said the knife didn’t have blood stains and it was not clear if it had been used for the murder.

Sources said the needle of suspicion was pointed towards the man who had checked into the room with the murdered person.

“The victim seems to be middle-aged. We suspect another man who was with the deceased in the room was behind the murder. After the crime, he sneaked out,” said a police source.

According of one of the employees at the hotel, the two men had booked the double room after 8pm on Saturday. “They told us that they had come from Lachung in North Sikkim and wanted a room. They booked a room and paid us Rs 800 for a day. When the identification proof was asked, one of them said that they would give a photocopy the next day,” said Prabir Mondal, an employee at the hotel.

One of our staff members knocked on the room yesterday, but there was no response.

“Thinking that they must be taking rest or sleeping, the employee did not bother them. The body was found this morning and the room door was slightly ajar. No one in the hotel had seen the other man leaving,” said Mondal.

The police source ruled out the claim that the two men had come from Lachung. “The man found dead didn’t have the physical features of anyone from the hills. It seems that he is from the plains.”

Inspector of Gangtok Sadar police station S.R. Shenga said action could be taken against the hotel staff for not collecting the addresses and the names of the two men.