The accused are sub-inspectors (SIs) Mohammad Emdad, Mohammad Shaheed and Mohammad Riaz.

Metropolitan Magistrate Mohammad Emdadul Haq took the case into cognisance following a hearing and asked the Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) commissioner to appoint an investigation officer from the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of police to probe the matter.

Mohammad Hamiduzzaman Ujjal, vice-president of ward No. 29 unit of BNP and brother of victim Mahbubul Alam Roni, filed the case.

Ujjal alleged that Emdad and Shaheed picked up Roni and three others at around 7:00pm on December 4 and took them to the latter's house at South Mugdapara in Sabujbagh. After beating the boys there, they took them to Sabujbagh Police Station at about 9:00pm, he said.

Asked to write down their names on white papers, Roni refused to sign, as his brother was not present.

Emdad and Shaheed tortured Roni and Mahbub Hasan Sohagh and asked them to inform their relatives to bring money for their release or face torture, Ujjal alleged.

Sohagh's mother secured her son's release after paying police Tk 10,000 at the police station, Ujjal alleged.

On Roni's family's failure to bring money, police tortured Roni with electric shocks that left him seriously injured.

Police implicated an ailing Rony in a criminal case the next day and produced him before the CMM's Court with a prayer for a five-day remand. But the court cancelled the prayer on ground of Rony's illness and sent him to Dhaka Central Jail.

When Rony's condition deteriorated, he was shifted to Dhaka Medical College Hospital on December 12 where doctors declared him dead.

Police, of course, refuted the allegations.