Kolkata: Police recovered an unidentified, heavily decomposed body of a man from the front seat of an abandoned red Audi sedan, parked inside a private garage in Rajdanga Narkelbagan in Kasba on Thursday afternoon.The discovery was made at premises at G-20, Rajdanga Main Road, located barely five minutes off the East Metropolitan (EM) Bypass along the Ruby crossing-bound flank, directly opposite the landmark GST Bhawan. According to preliminary reports, the luxury vehicle had been parked unused at the small garage spot for nearly a decade.The horror unfolded on Thursday morning when ground-floor residents of the adjoining G+4 building—unable to endure a sickening, foul odour that had been steadily intensifying over the past 10 to 15 days—decided to investigate the source of the stench. Upon inspecting the neglected garage located right next door to a local student tutorial centre, residents peeked inside the locked car and spotted the decomposed body, prompting an immediate distress call to the Kasba Police Station.A combined team of officers from Kasba PS and the homicide section of Lalbazar’s detective department rushed to the scene.“On Thursday afternoon, information has been received by Kasba PS over phone that a strong smell is coming out from an old parked Audi Car. Accordingly a team of Kasba PS reached the spot and checked the car. A highly decomposed body was found on front seat of an old red colored Audi Car without number plate at Rajdanga Main Road. The said Car was not in running condition with its gates in unlocked condition,” said additional CP (crime) Kunal Aggarwal.The identity of the deceased person could not be established as yet.Police and forensic experts found the victim’s body slumped horizontally across the front interior, with the head resting near the driver’s seat and the remaining torso lying across the front passenger seat. The advanced state of decomposition indicated that the death had occurred weeks prior to its being located. Crucially, the vehicle’s registration number plates had been deliberately removed, further complicating immediate identification.Police confirmed that the garage spot reportedly belongs to the Audi owner, who has been identified as the proprietor of an online portal. However, this is only the initial finding and cops are checking ownership records.Investigators are summoning the owner for detailed questioning to determine who had access to the premises and the vehicle. Meanwhile, officers are reviewing missing person reports registered across all police stations in Kolkata and the neighbouring South 24 Parganas district, while analysing local CCTV footage from surrounding access lanes.While forensic teams are working to establish the cause of death and verify whether foul play was involved, investigators are also probing whether the deceased was a burglar who got accidentally trapped inside the central-locking mechanism of the vintage luxury sedan while attempting a break-in. “The forensic examination is crucial. We have sent the remains for post-mortem,” said an additional CP.The recovery inside a densely populated neighbourhood sent shockwaves through the locality, triggering widespread anxiety among residents about security in their immediate surroundings.“We had been getting a faint bad smell for the last 10 to 15 days, but we initially assumed a stray cat or rat had died somewhere inside the open drain,” said a resident, Sampa Das. “By Thursday morning, the stench became so unbearable that we couldn’t keep our windows open. Never in our wildest dreams did we imagine a rotting corpse was lying inside a locked car right next to where our children go for daily tuition,” added Das.Another local resident expressed deep concern over the presence of abandoned vehicles in tight residential lanes. “This car has been gathering dust here for 10 years, completely neglected. How could someone enter a locked private garage in a busy area, get inside a car, and die without anyone noticing for weeks? It has frightened everyone in the neighbourhood, and we want the police to thoroughly check if there is a murder mystery behind this.”
