“He was brought for questioning by the Chembur unit of Mumbai police. He was suffering from hypertension. The allegations of torture by police are absolutely untrue,” said Nisar Tamboli, a police spokesman.
Usmani was taken to hospital by police when he complained of feeling unwell due to hypertension. Usmani was not a suspect in the Mumbai blasts but was quizzed due to his connections with alleged militants.
Usmani’s son told the Press Trust of India (PTI) news agency that the police "are to blame for his death".
"My father was picked up for questioning and pressurized during interrogation," he said.
Ryan Kumar, a doctor at the Lokmanya Tilak hospital in Mumbai, told NDTV that Usmani died of a brain haemorrhage, adding that "this usually happens when an otherwise normal person is subjected to a shock or mental disturbance".
Police said a post-mortem report would be prepared and an inquiry had been launched.
Meanwhile, Police were making incremental progress in the investigations into the three blasts Wednesday that killed 19 people and wounded 130 others.
All three bombs that exploded at three crowded places in downtown Mumbai were packed inside metallic containers and triggered by digital timing devices, said Rakesh Maria, a top investigator.
Investigators have prepared a sketch of a suspect they want to question over the three deadly bomb blasts that shook India’s financial hub Mumbai, police said Sunday.
The drawing composed from eyewitness accounts would be circulated among officials investigating the blasts but would not immediately be released to the public, a police official said on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to speak to the media.
However, Maria, who heads the anti-terrorism squad in Maharashtra state, said investigators were not in a position to name any terrorist outfit as being responsible for the blasts. Mumbai is the capital of Maharashtra state.
On Sunday, police arrested a man in the western Indian state of Gujarat who was allegedly in possession of 10 crude bombs. The man was being questioned, but there were no immediate details on the bombs.
Police in at least six states were involved in the investigation focused on possible links between the blasts and terrorist groups, Maria said.
Investigators have been questioning two suspected members of the Indian Mujahideen, a banned group with links to Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Pakistan-based militant outfit that has claimed past terrorist attacks that used similar explosives.
The blasts were the deadliest terrorist attack in Mumbai since a 2008 siege in which 166 people were killed in an assault that lasted three days.
