Nesar Ansari’s widow on Sunday met members of human rights outfit Lok Seva Samiti to seek justice for her husband, who was found hanging in a toilet at Ratu police station on the outskirts of the capital on Friday morning.

Nusrat Parveen, 18, who came with her father Takajul Ansari and mother Gulnaz Bibi to a meeting with the NGO on Ursuline Convent Girls’ School campus, Purulia Road, said her husband Nesar, 24, did not commit suicide as the police have claimed.

He had been killed by the police at the behest of Nazir Ansari, a dhaba owner, who had accused Nesar of theft, Parveen alleged.

Parveen said Nazir and some others had handed over Nesar to the police from their Al Kamar Colony home in Ratu at 2.30pm on August 20, accusing him of theft.

The police, however, claim that Nesar was arrested on August 22.

“The reality is different,” said Parveen, who had married Nesar on March 27 this year.

“On August 22, we had knocked on the door of the chief judicial magistrate to say my husband was in police custody since August 20 but the police had not produced him in court,” Parveen, said.

She accused Ratu police station officer-in-charge (OC) Manoj Kumar Rai and other policemen of thrashing her husband in custody till he died.

OC Rai denied the charge.

“Nesar was handed over to us on August 22 evening. During interrogation, he confessed his involvement in the theft at Nazir’s home from where

Rs 70,000 cash, a phone and gold ornaments were stolen on August 19 afternoon. Nesar said he was standing guard outside Nazir’s home as three others were stealing. These three are at large,” Rai said.

On the charge that Nesar was beaten to death, Rai called it a smear campaign.

“It is being done by those I had earlier booked in a case of rioting,” he said, but did not specify who “they” were.

Ranchi rural SP Ashutosh Shekhar said the probe that SSP Anish Gupta had ordered on August 23 was on.

“The report of Nesar’s autopsy has not come. I can’t give a conclusive statement now,” Shekhar said.

The Lok Seva Samiti will back the young widow. Samiti president Naushad Khan said the NGO would approach the government with a request to suspend the policemen and hand over the case to a retired judge or magistrate for an impartial probe. “The Samiti will also fight for a job for Nesar’s widow and installation of CCTV cameras at each police station,” Khan said.

On why Nazir should get Nesar killed, Khan said: “The theft was committed at Nazir’s house. He is influential. Nesar was poor and new in the area.”