Kiriti Roy, the secretary of rights NGO Manabadhikar Suraksha Mancha (Masum), was arrested at his Serampore home on Wednesday morning for allegedly running a “parallel court”. He was produced in the chief metropolitan magistrate’s court in the afternoon and granted bail.

The anti-terrorist cell of Lalbazar, which arrested Roy, claimed he had set up a court on SN Banerjee Road, called Peoples’ Tribunal on Torture, and appointed juries to hear petitions. The high court, in a recent interim order, had allowed the police to continue their probe against the tribunal. The Masum authorities had moved court demanding quashing of proceedings against it.

“The NGO had recently written to the police commissioner asking him to appear before the tribunal or send a representative to state the police version on a particular case,” a lawyer for the police had told the high court.