Darjeeling, Dec. 2: A tourist
staying at a Chowrastha hotel fell off a grille-less window of his room
while admiring the view last evening and landed on an iron gate with
spikes that pierced his head, killing him on the spot.
Sobhan Goswami, a
43-year-old businessman from Bharat Nagar in Siliguri, is suspected to
have fallen on the tin roof of a structure before hitting the iron gate
on the boundary wall of a plot adjacent to the hotel.
Sobhan arrived here yesterday along with his brother-in-law Susapan Adhikary for a day-long trip.
“We had thought of
leaving Darjeeling around 5pm yesterday but then my brother-in-law
(Sobhan) decided to stay back for the night,” said Adhikary, also from
Siliguri.
The duo checked in at Hotel Chalet in Chowrastha around 1.30pm and the room rent was Rs 700 for a night, hotel sources said.
“In the evening, we took a stroll around
Chowrastha and returned to the hotel around 8.30pm. I was in my bed when
he (Sobhan) called me to tell me that the view from our room was
stunning. I got up from the bed to see the landscape. I had only taken
two steps towards the window when I saw him losing balance and he fell
off the window,” Adhikary said.
All nine rooms in the hotel have large bay windows without any grille.
The hotel is
located on the top floor of a building that has a bookstore on the
ground floor. From Chowrastha, two rooms on the first floor of the hotel
can be seen.
On the northern
side, the hotel has three floors. A two-storeyed structure with a tin
roof was attached to the hotel building later.
Sources said Sobhan fell from a height of around 50ft.
A dent on the
attached structure’s tin roof below the window suggests that Sobhan fell
on it, bounced off and landed on the iron gate with spikes.
Police sources said Sobhan was drunk.
“It seems that the
deceased had brandy during the day. We have found a bottle of brandy in
the hotel room that was almost empty. According to our initial
investigation, his brother-in-law was not drinking,” said a police
officer.
The police have seized the bottle and a case of unnatural death has been registered.
“Had there been a grille, nothing would have happened. The hotel needs to put it up for the safety of people,” Adhikary said.
The hotel
employees said they would put grilles in the windows immediately. “The
hotel, which has been functional since the 1980s, has never reported
such an accident,” said an employee.
Only two were occupied yesterday.
“The deceased
person was very friendly and it seemed that he enjoyed the band
performances at Chowrastha,” he added. Local bands performed at
Chowrastha yesterday afternoon on World AIDS Day.
Source: The Telegraph