Calcutta, Sept. 20: Five state excise department constables have been accused of killing a person in custody and trying to hush up the case.

Constables Somnath Ghosh, Sunder Dutta, Alok Roy, Ramsunder Singh and Pradip Chatterjee of the department in West Midnapore were today denied anticipatory bail by the high court.

An executive superintendent, his deputy and an assistant sub-inspector of the department also figure in the FIR filed in connection with the case.

On July 31 last year, the excise police picked up Sudarshan Krishna Dalui from his house at Dherua in the kotwali police station area, 150 km from Calcutta. Dalui was then beaten up at the local barrack. When unconscious, the policemen admitted him to a nursing home.

As Dalui?s condition deteriorated, he was shifted to Midnapore Sadar Hospital, where he died.

After Dalui?s death, the policemen gave his son Biswajit Rs 1,000. He was allegedly forced to perform his father?s last rites and told to remain quiet. He is also said to have been promised ?Rs 2 lakh and a job in the excise department?.

But Biswajit neither got the money nor the job. Frustrated with the delay, his mother Bimala lodged a complaint with a West Midnapore judicial magistrate, who asked the kotwali police station to probe the incident and register a case against the guilty officials.

After preliminary investigation, the kotwali police filed a case against eight excise officials, including executive superintendent Sitaram Singh, deputy superintendent Tuhinmoy Chalui and assistant sub-inspector Satya Gopal Das. The kotwali police charged their excise counterparts with abduction, murder and false promise.

Denied bail by the chief judicial magistrate of West Midnapore, the constables had moved the high court.