Samar Mukherjee

The police officers who raided Samar Mukherjee’s house in Behala at 3am on Sunday have been identified.

“The cops have been identified and will be interrogated,” a senior officer told Metro on Tuesday. He, however, refused to say how many cops were involved in the raid.

The 62-year-old retired employee of the state electricity board hanged himself after allegedly being harassed by the five officers from Behala police station for defaulting on loan repayment.

“The cops were carrying a a non-bailable arrest warrant against Mukherjee. I think the police can visit anybody’s house at any time to execute an order. There is nothing illegal in it, but we are trying to find out whether they had harassed Mukherjee,” the officer said.

State home secretary Asok Mohan Chakrabarti had on Monday said the police need not have raided Mukherjee’s house at the dead of the night.

The superintendent of police (North 24-Parganas), Praveen Kumar, said a probe has been ordered into the family’s allegation that “police harassment” had pushed Mukherjee to suicide. “Action will be taken if the officers are found guilty,” Kumar said.

The family members had alleged that the cops had abused Mukherjee and threatened to arrest him. They left after asking Mukherjee, who was ill and could not walk, to report at Behala police station the next morning.