Itahar police have started inquiry against five police personnel of Raiganj police station over the alleged custodial death of a BJP worker, after his mother filed a complaint at the police station against the cops on Thursday.

Anup Roy, 23, who had joined the party six months ago, died on Wednesday, a few hours after his arrest in an earlier case of snatching.

Biswajit Lahiri, president of BJP North Dinajpur district committee, alleged: “He was beaten to death in custody.”

On Thursday, Anup’s mother Geeta Roy lodged a complaint at Itahar police against five policemen of Raiganj, Nihar Ranjan Das, Md Murtaza, Prabir Ghosh, Sandip Chakraborty and Uttam Modak.

Geeta also appealed to the Raiganj district court for a fresh post-mortem of her son’s body in the presence of the magistrate with videorecording. On the basis of her appeal, the court ordered a repeat of the post-mortem, which was conducted on Saturday.

Anup’s body was handed to Geeta after the second post-mortem.

Lahiri added: “Police arrested our party worker Anup Roy from his residence at Itahar on September 2 (Wednesday) for his involvement in a snatching case. On the evening when he died, police said his death was because of brain haemorrhage. They did the post-mortem without informing the deceased’s family.”

Jaspreet Singh, additional superintendent of police of Raiganj, said that based on Geeta’s complaint, a case had been started against five policemen under Sections 363 (kidnapping), 302 (murder) and 34 (acts done by many persons in furtherance of common intention) of the Indian Penal Code.

He said that the police arrested three men in the snatching case, and during their interrogation, came to know that Anup Roy, a resident Nandangram of Itahar, was the “mastermind”. “Police arrested him from his home on September 2. Later he started feeling unwell in custody and was admitted to Raiganj Government Medical College & Hospital and died in the hospital because of brain haemorrhage.”