Construction workers said the man had been beaten to death by students.
The body of an unidentified man was found tied to a pillar in the common room of a boys' hostel of Kolkata's premier medical college, NRS, this morning.
The police, who had been tipped off by an unidentified caller, rushed to the hostel around 9am. They took the man to the hospital's emergency room. But the doctors declared him "dead on arrival".
Some construction workers at the hostel told NDTV the man had been beaten to death by medical students who stayed at the hostel, because he had allegedly been caught stealing.
Roubil, a labourer, who was working there said, "We came to work at 6 am and found around 12 students standing around the pillar in which the man was tied. They carried lathis. The man was not making any sound. He seemed dead."
The man is yet to be identified, said Deputy Commissioner of Police Dhrubojyoti Dey. The police are trying to identify the caller too.
The police are also waiting for the postmortem report to file a First Information Report suo motu, since no complaint has been lodged so far.
Around 500 medical students stay at the NRS boys' hostel inside the hospital campus in the Sealdah area. The ones questioned have denied any knowledge of the incident, said a police officer.
The Minister of Women and Child Welfare Dr Shashi Panja, the chairperson of the NRS Patients Welfare Committee, has ordered an inquiry into the incident. A seven-member committee has been asked to submit a report within the next 24 hours.