On Monday, the 26 people arrested in the high-profile Baba Siddiqui murder case were produced before the special Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) Court in Mumbai. During the hearing, one of the accused, Nitin Gautam Sapre, made a startling allegation against the police.

Speaking via video-conferencing, Sapre claimed that he was taken to the Borivali Police Station from judicial custody and was coerced into giving a confessional statement. He alleged that the police threatened to implicate his family if he refused to make a confession. “I was pressured to confess, and the police threatened that my family would be arrested if I didn’t cooperate,” Sapre told the court.