Eminent fashion designer Sharbari Dutta on Friday was found dead under mysterious circumstances police said adding she was discovered dead inside her bathroom with blood oozing out of her mouth and some bruises on her ankle.

Dutta 63 and daughter of Dutta Bengali poet Ajit Dutta, was a pioneer of male fashion designing. She had draped a galaxy of cricketing icons like Sachin Tendulkar, Sunil Gavaskar, Imran Khan, Kapil Dev, Sourav Ganguly apart from a host of film personalities and politicians.

Dutta reportedly did not enjoy good chemistry with his son and his wife who lived in the same building running separate brands after the mother and the son parted ways three years ago.

Though preliminary post-mortem reports suggested she “might have suffered a cerebral attack,” the police would not come out with any final conclusion. “The investigation process is on and things would be clear in a few days though initial PM reports suggest that she had suffered cerebral stroke.”

Her son Amalin, also a fashion designer, said “we live in the same building but are busy with our own businesses and meet only in the night. … Mother was not reachable on phone since Thursday morning but we thought she must have gone out for some work or there was some mobile network problem… In the evening when she did not call me up we got suspicious. It was 11 pm till when I tried to contact her over telephone but the calls went unanswered … it was then that we got suspicious and rushed to find things out for ourselves … she was lying inside the bathroom.”

Dutta who had established her brand ''Shunyaa'' blended modernity well with ethnicity and had enamoured large number of people with the vibrancy in colour.

She had draped personalities ranging from sportsmen Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly to Bengali actor Prosenjit Chatterjee and singer-composer Anupam Roy, fashion industry sources said.

With the entire Bengali film industry expressing deep shock at her death cine star Prosenjit Chatterjee (son of Bollywood heartthrob of sixties) Biswajeet said “I had an ardent fan of her designing. Sharbaridi had introduced new trends in men's wear and made it look ethnic, fashionable and yet contemporary.

“She had a great creative instinct that always overwhelmed me to the effect that I often ran to her for something new but ethnic… I am shocked and shattered,” actress Rituparna Sengupta said.

Dutta’s junior contemporary and BJP leader Agnimitra Paul, “Didi your absence will be always felt. Wherever you are, stay well Sharbaridi. Om Shanti.”