Shillong girl found dead- Flight attendant's fatal fall from flat - Tragedy strikes through window without grille

TT, Aug. 16: A 23-year-old flight attendant with IndiGo mysteriously fell to her death from the third floor of the apartment building near Kestopur where she lived even as two friends slept in another room after the trio returned from Park Street last night.

Clara Bansharai Khongsit, who is from Shillong, was found dead around five feet from the base of the four-storey building at AC-49 Prafulla Kanan, a 10-minute walk from VIP Road. Some people out for their morning walk around 4.30am saw the body and called police.

Her friends - one of them works with SpiceJet as a flight attendant - were apparently unaware of the tragedy until they were woken up by a police team repeatedly knocking on the door to the apartment.

The trio had partied in a Park Street nightclub and returned only a few hours earlier, although Clara's friends were unable to specify the time they got back, the police said.

Investigators suspect Clara fell through a sliding aluminium-frame window without a grille. Till late tonight, there was no word from the police of whether the young woman's death was an accident, a suicide or homicidal in nature.

"We are checking her call details to see if she had had a fight with anyone that could have prompted her to end her life. We are not ruling out foul play either at this stage. The third possibility is that it was an accident.... she might have lost her balance sitting on the window ledge," said an officer in the Bidhannagar police commissionerate.

Clad in blue shorts and a red-and-white striped T-shirt, Clara's body was almost blocking the narrow lane in front of the apartment building when the morning walkers passed by.

A team from Baguiati police station reached the apartment building soon after to find her two friends clueless and allegedly incoherent. "They were unable to recall even when they had returned to the flat. We will have to question them again," said an officer.

Clara's body would be sent for post-mortem tomorrow. The time of death - that will decide how long she had been lying on the road - is crucial to the investigation, the officer said.

The preliminary inference is that the Shillong girl fell to her death from a height of around 34 feet.

Vivek Syiem, the superintendent of police (city) in Shillong, said a deputy commissioner of police in Calcutta called to inform him about Clara's "unnatural death".

Clara grew up at Lumparing in Shillong and went to St. John's High School and Lady Keane College. She joined IndiGo in 2016.

Tuesday was her weekly off and she had gone out with friends Evalyne Leen Nongrum and Suraj Sutodiya. The trio celebrated Evalyne's birthday. Evalyne and Clara had been friends since they met while training to be flight attendants.

The 850sq ft flat where Clara had been living for around seven months was bought by her father Sherab Tenzing Bhutia eight years ago. Bhutia, also an airline employee, is currently based in Kuwait, the police said.

Clara's elder brother Anthony arrived in the afternoon. "We have just reached, I cannot say anything now," he said.

IndiGo airlines issued a statement condoling the flight attendant's death. "We have come to know of the sad demise of our employee Ms Khongsit Clara Bansharai.... IndiGo expresses its deepest condolences," the airline said.