Gupta, 40, a resident of Lake Town had gone missing on Sunday afternoon from the Kolkata airport where he gone to see off his mother.

The villagers found the body that was packed in a gunny bag with his hands and legs being tied.

“It seems that the man was strangled to death. The motive is not clear as yet,” said Basab Dasgupta, Additional Police Superintendent of North 24 Parganas.

According to the police, there are some injury marks on the victim’s body, which has been sent for a postmortem.

“It is only after we get the postmortem report, we can say something about how the man died,” said Ashok Roy, Sub-Divisional Police Officer at Belghoria, who visited the spot from where the body was recovered.

On Sunday, Gupta dropped his mother at the airport where she was scheduled to catch a 2.30 pm flight for Hyderabad.

Since then his family members lost contact from Gupta and his cellphone was also switched off.

“We lost contact with him since yesterday afternoon, but we thought that he must have gone for some meeting and is busy. He was a nice man and had no problems with anyone, leave alone enmity. We cannot imagine why would someone kill him. His wife is pregnant and is in deep shock,” said B N Poddar, the victim’s uncle.

Gupta is survived by his wife, Malati, and an eight-year-old daughter Ruchi.