A metropolitan magistrate's court on Tuesday remanded four accused persons to judicial custody for 14 days in connection with the death of a state government employee Y Yadaiah, who was wrongfully confined and tortured by a debt recovery firm in Hyderabad four days ago.

Sundar Babu, Ramesh and Sridhar, partners of Elite Financial Services, an agency reportedly authorised by the ICICI Bank [Get Quote] to recover money from defaulters, and the firm's executive Raju were produced before the 14th metropolitan magistrate's court.

The accused were arrested on Monday after the city police had registered a case under Sections 342 (wrongful confinement), 365 (kidnapping) and 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder), Punjagutta Inspector of Police G Narasaiah told rediff.com. "The investigation so far reveals that only these four persons were involved," he added.

The police said that 42-year-old Yadaiah, an electrician with the AP Medical and Health Department, was picked up from a bus-stop near his office at Sultan Bazar by Raju on June 22 and forcibly taken to the Elite Financial Services' office at Ameerpet for recovery of a loan amount of Rs 15,000.

Later, the firm's three partners confined Yadaiah in their office and threatened them of dire consequences if he failed to repay the loan amount immediately.

The victim was allegedly beaten to death on June 23. His wife Sunanda lodged a complaint with Punjagutta police that Yadaiah was abducted, forcibly confined and tortured to death by recovery agents.

Taking cognisance of the reports about Yadaiah's death, the AP Human Rights Commission issued notices to the Punjagutta Division assistant commissioner of police to submit a report on the incident by June 29.