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Two undertrials died after 262 of them were herded into two windowless lock ups of West Bengal's Malda court designed for accommodating 45 prisoners each.
Six other undertrials, who fell ill in the lock up on Thursday, were admitted to the Malda General Hospital.
Confirming the deaths, Superintendent of Police Pankaj Dutta said on Friday that the two, Anesh Das and Nimai Ghosh, had complained of uneasiness and were dead by the time they were brought to the hospital.
Fellow undertrials Rabbul Sheikh and Subodh Karmakar who were in the overcrowded lock-up, told newsmen that the two were gasping for breath and asked for water after being pushed into one of the two windowless rooms.
Hospital sources said the two died of suffocation.
West Bengal Bar Association secretary Asit Bose said the maximum capacity of each lock-up was 20, and criticised the authorities for keeping the prisoners in such cramped conditions.
The lock-ups did not have a ventilator and the rooms had not been renovated since independence, he said.
A magisterial probe has been ordered into the death of the two undertrials.
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