Dibrugarh, Feb. 6: The army’s credibility has again come under a cloud with troops allegedly killing a youth in custody and dumping his body at the Assam Medical College and Hospital in Dibrugarh without informing either police or the civil administration.

The army’s Tezpur-based 4 Corps claimed that 30-year-old Ajit Mahanta of Gohaingaon in Tinsukia district was an “active Ulfa linkman” and had died after a fall. An official statement also “regretted” the youth’s death. “The sad demise of Ajit Mahanto (spelt wrongly) is deeply regretted,” it said.

The statement was, however, silent on the fact that troops had rushed the body to Assam Medical College and Hospital at 2 am yesterday and left it at the casualty ward. The entry in the hospital register mentions that Mahanta was “brought dead”.

An army officer based in Dinjan, the headquarters of the 2 Mountain Division, revealed that the troops who picked up Mahanta on Saturday did not inform their superiors about the death.

An army source said that just before his death, the youth had been guiding troops in search of “hidden money and arms” from one place to another. “The soldiers may have used illegal methods to elicit information from Mahanta,” the source said.

A senior police official in Tinsukia confirmed that the civil and the police administration were in the dark about the operation. Mahanta’s family ? his wife and two sons, aged four and two ? came to know about his death only this afternoon.

“If he (Mahanta) died in the way the army has described, why didn’t the troops hand over the body to the police, which is the established procedure in counter-insurgency operations? The army is getting itself into deep trouble by trying to cook up a flimsy story,” the police official said.

The army has instituted a court of inquiry into the circumstances leading to the death of Mahanta, who was a farmer.

Tinsukia deputy commissioner Gautam Ganguly has instituted another probe, to be conducted by additional deputy commissioner Haresh Chandra. He has been asked to submit his report within a fortnight.

The official army version is that Mahanta knew about a hidden Ulfa “treasure chest”. A defence spokesman said he tried to escape while leading a group of soldiers to the cache of weapons and money. “He fell down and suffered fatal injuries.”

Dr H.K. Mahanta, who conducted the post-mortem on the youth’s body, declined to divulge anything.

In an unrelated development, about 1,000 residents of Jeraigaon ? the ancestral village of Ulfa chief Paresh Barua ? again blocked National Highway 37 and the adjacent rail track in protest against the detention of four persons picked up by the army and handed over to the police. The protesters were shouting pro-Ulfa slogans.