A local special court sent Saroj Kumar Meher to jail for allegedly forcing a tribal engineer do sit-ups.

A local special court deferred hearing of a bail petition of ruling Biju Janata Dal MLA Saroj Kumar Meher and sent him to jail on Monday for allegedly forcing a tribal engineer do sit-ups.

As the lawyers in Bhubaneswar are holding agitation programmes, Saroj Meher was allowed to present his own case at the court.

Pleading for bail, the MLA promised the court that he would not flee if he was granted it.

The alleged victim, PWD junior engineer Jaykant Sabar, and his wife opposed granting of bail to him and told the court that they had received threat calls.

The Bhubaneswar special court then deferred the hearing of the MLA's bail petition till July 5 and sent him to the special jail at Jharpada in Bhubaneswar, government advocate Pradipta Kumar Mishra said.

The court also asked the Jharpada jail authorities to take decision on the treatment to be given to Saroj Meher.

Earlier in the day, he was shifted from Patnagarh jail for production at the additional district and session court, designated as the special court, to deal with cases linked to politicians, including MLAs and MPs, on Monday.

The Patnagarh MLA had allegedly forced a tribal junior engineer of the PWD department to do 100 sit-ups in public in Bolangir over poor quality of road construction work on June 5.

A purported video of the incident went viral the next day sparking state-wide protests by government junior engineers and the tribal community.

Saroj Meher was arrested on June 24.