Police said the deceased, Ashok Raiji Parmar, a resident of Nishal Faliya in Bamroli, had left his house late on Friday evening after receiving a phone call. (Representational image)

The Panchmahal police has launched a probe into the mysterious death of an 18-year-old resident of Bamroli village in Sehra Taluka whose shirtless body was found hanging from a tree in a farm owned by his father on Saturday morning. The family of the deceased claimed that he was murdered as his hands were tied and his legs touching the ground.

Police said the deceased, Ashok Raiji Parmar, a resident of Nishal Faliya in Bamroli, had left his house late on Friday evening after receiving a phone call. He did not return home that night. When his family members began to look for him in the early morning, one of them spotted his body hanging from a tree, but his feet touching the ground, and his shirt lying on a lowered branch of the tree.

The family alerted the Sehra police station, which is probing the case.

N M Prajapati, Police Inspector, Sehra, said, “We called in the forensic lab and two teams of our department. The probe is underway and it is difficult to say how he died. A panel of doctors has conducted an autopsy on the body and we are awaiting the reports. He was found hanging but his hands were tied in the front. There were no external injury marks on his body, so it is extremely puzzling at the moment. We are also tracing his call records.”

Prajapati added that the police are yet to apprehend those who he was last seen with, but refused to divulge details of the calls the deceased received before leaving his house on Friday evening. Police confirmed that Ashok’s body has been handed over to the family after autopsy.