BJP leader Jitendra Tiwari was produced before the chief judicial magistrate’s court in Asansol on Sunday and remanded to eight days in police custody.

The former mayor of Asansol was arrested by the special investigating team of Asansol-Durgapur police commissionerate from Jamuna Expressway in Uttar Pradesh’s Noida on Saturday in connection with the deaths of three persons in a stampede during a blanket distribution event in Asansol on December 14 last year.

He will next be produced before the court on March 27.

Tiwari was accused of culpable homicide not amounting to murder.

His wife Chaitali Tiwari, leader of the Opposition in Asansol municipal corporation, and 10 other party members were also accused of the same charges. Police said Chaitali could not be arrested as she had not been located yet. The couple were in New Delhi for a few days.

Public prosecutor Somnath Chattaraj appealed for a 14-day police remand for Tiwari for further investigation.

Tiwari, a lawyer by profession, pleaded his own case and requested the magistrate to grant him only two days in police remand as the petition appeal for his anticipatory bail was likely to be heard this Monday in Supreme Court. He told the court that he would not be moving a bail petition for the same reason.

CJM Tarun Kumar Mandal, after listening to both sides, allowed eight days in police remand for Tiwari.

BJP workers in Asansol demonstrated outside the court in protest of their leader’s arrest and scuffled with police when the latter tried to disperse them.

BJP workers alleged that arrested Trinamul leader Anubrata Mondal got an air-conditioned car from jail authorities but Tiwari was brought in a non-AC police jeep. “Police are also treating Tiwari very roughly. Is he a criminal like Anubrata?” one asked.

Police took Tiwari away in a police jeep. Before that Tiwari told media present outside the Asansol court that a conspiracy was hatched by the police against him.

Police denied the charges and said the case was under investigation and was proceeding according to the law of the land.

Tiwari and his wife Chaitali, along with an organisation had hosted a blanket-distribution event at Ramkrishna Dangal in Asansol on December 14 where the leader of the Opposition in Bengal Assembly Suvendu Adhikari was the chief guest. Shortly after Adhikari and some other leaders left the venue, there was a huge rush from the crowd to collect the blankets, which triggered a stampede and killed two women and a minor girl.

Police later filed an FIR against Tiwari, Chaitali and others based on a complaint filed by the son of one of the deceased.

Based on the complaint, Tiwari, Chaitali and 10 other BJP workers were accused of culpable homicide not amounting to murder. The police had formed an SIT to probe the incident.