The mysterious death of 26-year-old leather factory employee Poltu Mollah brewed unrest in Behala on Sunday afternoon. His relatives alleged torture by the factory owner, who maintained Poltu had committed suicide.

Poltu was found hanging from the ceiling of a bathroom on the ground floor of the double-storeyed factory of Meera Leathers, on SN Roy Road.

He and his elder brother Osman, alias Pintu, had worked in the factory for a year and a half.

Two co-workers brought down Poltu around 2 pm and rushed him to a nursing home in Ekbalpore, about 1.5 km from the factory. After a few hours, the doctors declared the youth dead.

Poltu’s relatives raised questions over the nursing home’s “delay” in declaring him dead. According to them, he had died by the time he was taken to the clinic.

Poltu’s co-workers broke into a quarrel among themselves at the clinic over the cause of his death, prompting cops from Ekbalpore to rush in and bring things under control.

Around 3 am on Monday, Pintu registered a formal complaint with Behala police, stating Poltu had been beaten to death.

The cops had allegedly refused to register a complaint from the family for hours. The body was subsequently sent for post-mortem.

“We have started a probe into the death. It will not be right to comment before the post-mortem report arrives. There are certain allegations we need to look into,” said South 24-Parganas police superintendent S.N. Gupta.

Poltu had been accused of stealing leather from the factory. On Friday evening, his relatives alleged, he and a few other workers were summoned by the owner’s son to his room in the factory.

Pintu, too, was later called in. The brothers were thrashed by the owner’s son and his men, claimed Pintu.

“Later in the evening, Poltu was taken upstairs for another round of beating. Pintu could hear him being beaten, but was too weak after the thrashing to offer any kind of resistance. On Saturday morning, the owner’s son asked Pintu to return home and arrange for Rs 50,000 as compensation for the leather he and his brother had stolen,” said Poltu’s relative Mohd Rafique.

“I was busy raising the money, when around 8 pm on Sunday, I heard my brother was dead,” Pintu told Metro.