Burdwan, Sept. 4: Lawyers of Kalna court in Burdwan protested against police atrocity this morning after a 52-year-old undertrial was produced before the court in his undergarment by Manteswar police.

Madhusudan Shaw was arrested from his residence last night after the Krishnagar court issued a warrant against him. “Shaw was to appear in court following a complaint by Asit Roy, a resident of Mamudpur village in Manteswar. But he did not do so and police today harassed him on the pretext of arresting him,” alleged a lawyer.

Shaw alleged that officials from the Manteswar police station pulled him out of bed and took him to the police station without heeding his pleas to allow him to get dressed.

The undertrial had to travel in a public bus for nearly 40 km and then walk more than 2 km semi-naked to court, where subdivisional executive magistrate Nitai Chand Dutta granted him bail.

Shaw’s neighbours said he was forced to leave home half-naked. “Officers of the local police station did not give him time to get dressed. He was forced to go with them to Manteswar thana in his undergarment,” claimed Raj Kumar Pande, an agricultural farmer.

“He was lodged at the police station throughout the night in his undergarments and even on Saturday when they brought him to court they did not care to get him dressed,” alleged Gautam Goswami, a lawyer practising at the Kalna subdivisional court.

The bar association of Kalna subdivision has decided to file a complaint with the West Bengal Human Rights Commission against the police for harassing an undertrial. “It is inhuman. We will not tolerate this. We want the guilty policemen punished,” said Swapan Debnath, a member of the bar association.

However, the Burdwan superintendent of police, Neeraj Singh, denied the allegations. “He (Shaw) was repeatedly asked by our officers to get dressed but he turned down their requests. As a warrant was issued against him we had no option but to produce him before court in his undergarment,” Singh said.

“We had to keep him out of the court lock-up as he picked up a fight with the other prisoners who were lodged with him,” Singh said.

Shaw was wanted in a case under Section 107 of the IPC (breach of peace).

Trouble started a few months ago for the social activist popular in Manteswar.

“The relation between Asit Roy and his wife Bijoybharati, who lived in Nadia, had soured. Bijoybharati took shelter in my house at Manteswar. Asit lodged a complaint with the Chapra police station. I failed to attend the hearing in June, prompting court to issue the arrest warrant,” Shaw said in court today.