According to official sources, his family members informed the top brass of Calcutta Police when Ganguly failed to return from his morning walk at the nearby Horticultural Gardens. His wife, who was in Jaipur, was contacted.

Ganguly had gone out at 5 am. After he was reported missing, enquiries with other regular morning walkers revealed that they had not seen Ganguly on Friday.

The Alipur police station, responsible for policing the area in which Ganguly lives, said no diary was filed immediately in cases involving missing persons.

The news electrified an otherwise dull Good Friday holiday, with abduction topping the list of theories doing the rounds. According to some, Ganguly has been abducted because he is the top official at Exide, which belongs to the cash-rich Rajan Rahejagroup.

Exide's company secretary Barun Das proffered a more sedate explanation -- the portly Ganguly was in New Delhi attending a yoga camp.

Till late in the evening, the control room at Lalbazar, headquarters of Calcutta Police, said it had no information about the incident. Police commissioner DC Vajpai was not available. Nor was deputy commissioner (south), Ranjit K Pachnanda.

PTI filed a late evening report quoting additional commissioner of police Sujoy Chakraborty as confirming that Ganguly is missing.

Alipur police officials said they will issue a statement at 10.30 pm, after being briefed by senior officials.

The 56-year-old Ganguly, who has been with Exide since 1986, was chairman of the eastern region wing of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in 1997-98.

If he has been abducted, it will be first such incident in Calcutta involving a top official of a nationally-known company. On December 14 last year, Calcutta had been rocked by a gun battle between a special squad of UttarPradesh Police and members of the Bablu Srivastav gang who were planning to abduct a city businessman.

That early morning shootout, the climax of a dramatic car chase, had left four dead in the heart of Calcutta's affluential Park Street area. The UP police team had been patrolling the Maidan area, another favourite of morning walkers, when they chanced upon the gang members, who were hunting for prey, and gave chase.