Police early on Thursday picked up a 40-year-old man after the body of a boy was found hanging on the premises of a temple at Bhatia Bustee in the Kadma police station area a day earlier.

The deceased, identified as 14-year-old Ashu Mahanand, worked at the house of the man, Debu Mukherjee, located on the premises of Chandi Baba Mandir in the densely populated Bhatia Bustee.

The police picked up Mukherjee after the boy’s kin and hundreds of local residents gathered outside the Chandi Baba Mandir and set up a blockade demanding the arrest of the suspect, branding it a murder case.

The body was found hanging from a ceiling fan in the veranda of Mukherjee’s home. The matter came to light at 10pm, leading the boy’s family members and local residents to rush to the spot and take part in protests which continued from 10pm on Wednesday till 2am on Thursday.

A police team led by officer in charge, Kadma, Ranjit Kumar first dispersed the protesters and subsequently took Mukherjee in custody before removing the body.

“Prima facie, this appears to be a case of suicide, but as the body was found hanging at the house of Mukherjee who is the owner of the temple, we have detained him. We are interrogating him and will formally arrest him if we can establish that he was responsible for the suicide of the boy who used to work at the house as a domestic help,” Kumar told The Telegraph Online.

Kumar added that the police would wait for the autopsy report to ascertain whether the boy was being tortured by Mukherjee.

The police have kept the body at the MGM Medical College mortuary. But as no one from his family or from the police turned up at the mortuary, the autopsy could not be done on Thurday.

The boy’s brother, Anuj Mahanand, said his sibling had been working at Mukherjee’s temple and house for the past three years.

“But Mukherjee and his family members were not allowing Ashu to return home… We have learnt that on Tuesday night, Mukherjee and his brother had also assaulted my brother as he wanted to go home.

“We were informed on Wednesday night that Ashu had committed suicide by hanging from the ceiling fan. Why should my brother commit suicide when we stay near the temple?” asked Anuj.

He suggested that it could be a murder.

Mukherjee and his family allegedly did not let the boy’s family enter the house when they went there after hearing of the death.

“When we forcibly entered the temple premises and saw the body, we found it hanging with the feet touching the ground. Had it been a suicide, the feet would not have been in such a position. We suspect that Mukherjee and others in his family may have strangulated Ashu and later hanged the body so that it appears as a suicide,” Anuj said.