JU Professor Mainak Pal had travelled to Uttarakhand with two friends
A 44-year-old professor of Jadavpur University in Kolkata was found dead at a hotel in Uttarakhand with his hand and throat slit. According to multiple reports, police have said Mainak Pal may have died by suicide.
Pal, who is survived by his wife, daughter and parents, had travelled to Uttarakhand for a short trip with two friends. While his friends carried on, he decided to return to Kolkata. He checked in to a hotel in Lalkuan and was to board a train back home next morning. Some reports say that he had told his friends that he was missing his daughter and wanted to be home.
When his family could not reach him over the phone on Friday evening, they called up the hotel. The hotel staff broke the room's door and found Pal's body in the bathroom. He had deep cuts on his hands and neck and blood was splattered on the floor.
The Philosophy professor's chilling death has shocked his colleagues back in Kolkata. The Jadavpur University Teachers' Association has said Pal left a deep imprint as a teacher. "We are in deep shock since we heard about his death," Partha Pratim Roy, the general secretary of the teachers' body, said in a statement.
"Pal was a lovable person and popular among students and the fraternity. The entire JU family is shell-shocked," Roy said.
The professor was an alumnus of Presidency College, Kolkata and worked in two West Bengal government colleges before returning to Presidency University as a teacher. He joined Jadavpur University in 2022 as an associate professor.