RIYADH, May 26: The Saudi Ministry of Interior has begun investigations against some members of the Saudi religious police for beating to death a 28-year-old Saudi national Salman Al-Huriasy, the daily Al Watan reported on Saturday.

The family of the dead has alleged he was dragged from his home and beaten to death while in detention by the members of the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice last week, the Saudi daily reported.

Salman and some of his other relatives were arrested on charges of dealing in alcohol. Relatives of the victim told the Al Watan that other members of the family, who were also arrested, had seen Huraisy being beaten to death in detention in Riyadh. Salman was a father of one.

The interior ministry has been resisting pressure to disband the group. A Saudi civil court recently agreed to hear the first ever case against the kingdom’s religious police. An unnamed woman filed a case against the religious police members, commonly knows as ‘mutawwas’ of illegally detaining herself and her daughter in a shopping centre car park in 2004 for “not wearing decent clothing,” her lawyer Abderrahman Al-Lahm was quoted as saying by the local press here.

The religious policeman in question arrested the two, commandeered the car from their driver and drove them to his headquarters where the already sick mother suffered “health complications,” said Lahm. The driver was also beaten by the members of the force for driving ‘unrelated women,’ in the care.