The family of serving army officer Lt Col Prasad Purohit, arrested in connection with the Malegaon blast, has filed an affidavit in the Nashik Chief Judicial Magistrate’s court alleging physical and mental torture and harassment by the Anti-Terrorism Squad.

Purohit, a resident of Pune, was taken into custody after midnight on November 5 and shown as arrested in the morning. He was produced in the Nashik Chief Judicial Magistrate court which remanded him to police custody until November 15, and also allowed the Anti-Terrorism Squad to conduct narco-analysis tests on him.

An affidavit was filed by a relative, Vilas Anand Dalvi, today in the same court alleging that the family had “specific information that Purohit has suffered physically and psychologically after he was detained in ATS custody”. The affidavit alleges that he has been badly beaten and his left hand is completely paralysed, the fingers of his right hand fractured and his knees were injured badly.

The affidavit alleges that the investigation agency has forcibly taken him for narco-analysis tests when he is “physically and psychologically” unfit. The family has also alleged that Purohit is being made to undergo two narco-analysis tests when the court had allowed only one.

The affidavit urges for Purohit’s medical check-up to be done by a civil surgeon in the presence of two senior doctors and two doctors from the army.