The Uttar Pradesh police may be trying their best to nail Raghuraj Pratap Singh alias Raja Bhaiya, the independent jailed legislator who spearheaded a revolt against the Mayawati government in the state.

But they have received a rude shock on Wednesday, when their key witness wrote to the National Human Rights Commission on Wednesday and said the police forced him to cook up evidence against Raja Bhaiya.

Hari Om Shanker, 50, secretary of Raja Bhaiya, shot off a hand-written letter from the Pratapgarh jail to the NHRC as well as the local judicial magistrate. Copies of the letter were circulated in the local media in Lucknow this evening.

"I wish to draw your kind attention to the torture I have been subjected to by the Pratapgarh police so that I could become a party to their efforts to frame Raja Bhaiya in different criminal offences," Shankar said in his complaint.

The jailed secretary of the former prince has described how he was picked up from his house and tortured by the police for two days, following which he was forced to sign on the dotted line.

He has also charged the police of forcing him to spell out the 'tutored' version before the electronic media. "I was made to lie on ice slabs for two hours and then on the following day made to stand for several hours in the chilling waters of the lake that adjoins Raja Bhaiya's palace in Benti village from where a human skull and some bones were claimed to have been recovered by the police," Shankar said.

While the police said they have recovered a skull of a man who was murdered in 2001 allegedly by Raja Bhaiya's men, Shankar has accused the police of planting the skull and bones.

"I was told that after the electronic media arrives from Lucknow, I should personally go and guide them to the spot where the skull was planted; I was also told to confess that Raja Bhaiya had got the murdered man buried in the lake," the letter said.

The letter has come as a rude shock to the Mayawati administration. Officials are, however, silent over this new development.

The police are also trying to establish that Raja Bhaiya had links with the Inter Service Intelligence of Pakistan.

It appears, the way the police is trying its gather evidence, that the Mayawati administration is willing to go to any extent to prove that Raja Bhaiya is a perfect case for the Gangsters Act as well as Prevention of Terrorism Act.

Meanwhile, earlier the police claimed that the skeleton recovered belonged to one Santosh Misra allegedly killed by the legislator's henchmen.

The victim's widow, Vineeta Misra, had lodged a First Information Report in this regard last week and the three accused persons were arrested on Monday, they said.

Vineeta, in her complaint, said that she and her husband were traveling on a scooter when Raja Bhaiyya's car, trying to overtake them, hit the two-wheeler.

Irked by this, Misra was allegedly picked up and taken to the Beti Palace in the car where he was beaten to death and the body buried near the pond, police said.

With inputs from PTI