ROURKELA: A youth allegedly died in custody at Rajgangpur police station on Wednesday night. Though police said he was found hanging from the ceiling of the toilet, his family members alleged that he was first assaulted brutally by the villagers who handed him over to police on Saturday and then beaten to death by the cops four days later.Two persons, identified as Rabindra Lakra and Naveen Lakra, who had allegedly thrashed Jay Kumar Lakra after catching him at a village market, have been arrested by Kutra police following a complaint made by the father of the deceased.“I’m surprised that the police officials had detained him for four days, instead of forwarding him to court,” Budhram Lakra, father of Jay, said. He alleged, “Police have beaten him to death and are now cooking up a suicide story.” Budhram also questioned the intention of Rajgangpur police, saying that they come under the jurisdiction of Kutra police station of the district.Sources said Jay (30), a native of Laikakacha village under Kutra police station, had opened a public service centre of State Bank of India at Tunmara village about three years ago. He had reportedly been opening Jan Dhan accounts of locals under a central scheme and taking small deposits from them on behalf of the bank. Later, some of the depositors had found that Jay had not deposited their money in the bank. When the villagers had demanded their money back, Jay had reportedly fled from the village. Though he had been absconding for the last three years, he was spotted at Sonakhan weekly market here last Saturday by the locals, following which they had caught him and handed him over to police.Significantly, both Rabindra and Naveen had given their money to Jay for depositing it in the bank three years ago.Tension gripped Rajgagnpur hospital when the body of Jay was taken there for postmortem. In view of the situation, as many as 20 platoons of police force have been deployed. Jay’s family members said police informed them that he had committed suicide after locking himself up in the toilet of the police station on Wednesday night. His family quoted police as saying that Jay had used his track pants to hang himself.DIG (western range) Kavita Jalan said, “A proper inquiry will be conducted as per the protocol of human rights commission into the alleged custody death case.” The situation remained tense in Rajgangpur as hundreds of locals from the deceased’s native village reached the spot and opposed the police attempt to conduct a postmortem of the body. It was, however, carried out in the afternoon.

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