According to the police, Boragani Srisailam (20), Vallepu Lingaiah (20) and Kore Devender(22), all belonging to Dharmannapet village in Khanapur mandal, were taken into custody yesterday morning in connection with a property offence. They were let off in the evening after interrogation and were told to bring their parents.

After having dinner, they returned at 10 pm yesterday and collapsed in the station premises after informing the sentry on duty that they had consumed pesticide. All the three were immediately rushed to the local government hospital where two of them were pronounced dead immediately after admission. The other died in the early hours of today, police said.

However, conflicting versions were heard over the death of the three persons. The locals and the parents of thedeceased alleged that the youth were summoned to the police station every day for over a week for questioning and were tortured in custody. Another version was that the youth might have committed suicide unable to arrange the money demanded by police for not implicating them in the theft case.

Even police versions varied from one another. While one officer said that the youth were asked to bring their parents and bond papers to let them off on bail, another maintained that the three were sent out for dinner. According to him, the three consumed liquor and pesticide and were found lying unconscious opposite the police station. ``We shifted them to the hospital where they died,'' the officer said.

Locals alleged that the youths were tortured to death inside the lock-up and the police concocted a story to make it appear as a suicide.

Postmortem on the bodies began only in the evening since doctors from the Mahatma Gandhi Memorial (MGM) hospital had to be sent to the town as the locals expressedreservations over the veracity of the autopsy conducted by the doctors in the town.