Meghalaya police have recovered an “unknown” and “semi-decomposed” body from a betel-nut plantation in East Jaintia Hills district with a Bangladesh passport bearing the name of Ishaque Ali Khan Panna, fuelling speculations that the deceased could be former general secretary of Bangladesh Chhatra League who reportedly died while fleeing to India last week.

A statement issued by the East Jaintia Hills District police on Wednesday said, “ ... one unknown male dead body in a semi-decomposed state was found lying at the betel nut plantation located in the Dona Bhoi area” of the district, about 1.5km from the Bangladesh border, on the evening of August 26 (Monday).

“One Bangladesh passport bearing the name of Shri Ishaque Ali Khan Panna was recovered from the dead body,” the police said, adding the body was shifted to the Khliehriat Civil Hospital for the post-mortem after “observing all the formalities” at the place of occurrence.

The police statement also said the body has been kept at the civil hospital after the post-mortem “for identification and claiming of the same. The investigation is on”.

Police have not shared the cause of death or when the death took place but a source said that plantation labourers came across the body on Monday evening and informed the police. Saturday and Sunday are no-working day at the plantation.

Officials in Meghalaya and Assam also said the recovery of the passport prompted the East Jaintia police to apprise the development of the state government, which, in turn, got in touch with the ministry of external affairs in Delhi. The ministry got in touch with the Bangladesh High Commission over the development.

One of them said the family of Panna, 60, had got in touch with the Bangladesh’s ministry of foreign affairs “to arrange for the repatriation of the body of the deceased” while another official said the “address” on the passport was Banani, an upscale locality in Dhaka.

Media reports from Dhaka said Panna “went into hiding” after the fall of the Sheikh Hasina government on August 5 following a widespread student movement against quotas in government jobs. He died fleeing to India through Sylhet which borders East Jaintia Hills on Saturday, an official said.