Manchanda murder case: PCR restructured to plug loopholes

The police control room in Gurugram has been restructured following lapses in the investigation of the 31-year-old Delhi executive Yuvraj Singh Manchanda’s murder case in Badshahpur, whose body cremated as unclaimed by the city police

The police control room in Gurugram has been restructured following lapses in the investigation of the 31-year-old Delhi executive Yuvraj Singh Manchanda’s murder case in Badshahpur, whose body cremated as unclaimed by the city police.

The Supreme Court heard the matter on Monday, asking Gurugram police officials what action they had taken in the incident.

A senior police official said the Gurugram assistant commissioner of police (headquarters) has been made the special nodal officer to be immediately informed in case of recovery of an unidentified body.

The official said no such protocol earlier existed.

Besides, crime branch officials will be deputed at the police control room in shifts to ensure information on body recoveries is relayed to the deputy commissioner of police (crime) and two ACPs under him.

ACP (headquarters) will also ensure that the message of an unidentified body recovery is shared with all police stations across the district, police control rooms of neighbouring districts, state police headquarters in Panchkula, and Delhi police mandatorily, the official said.

In the Manchanda case, it had come to light that the message of body recovery was not relayed to the Delhi police control room and neighbouring districts in Haryana from the Gurugram police control room, following which departmental proceedings were recommended against a sub-inspector Seema responsible for the task along with Rajesh Bagri, the Badshahpur station house officer.

The investigating officer (IO) in the case, assistant sub-inspector Sahun Khan, had already been suspended for negligence in the investigation of the unidentified body recovery.

Meanwhile, DCP (South) Ayush Yadav told HT on Wednesday that at least five officials, including the inspector and those from forensic units, may face action within a day or two in the case for lapses and negligence.

“The IO of the case has already been suspended. Recommendations is likely to be sent to the Haryana health department for taking action against the doctor who had carried out the autopsy of the body for lapses. He had put his findings in the postmortem report that the cause of death was likely drowning,” the DCP added.

The Supreme Court heard the matter on Monday, asking Gurugram police officials what action they had taken in the incident.

Manchanda, a Sarita Vihar resident, went missing after travelling to Gurugram from Lajpat Nagar market in Delhi on September 6. His family filed a missing complaint at Lajpat Nagar police station on September 11, after which police launched an investigation to trace him.

On the other hand, Gurugram police had recovered a highly decomposed unidentified body from a plot filled with sewage water on September 10. After preserving it for 72 hours as per law, it was cremated following autopsy on September 14, and on the same day, its details were uploaded on the unidentified dead body recovery database on CCTNS.

However, no details or photographs were uploaded on ZIPNET, commonly used by Delhi and Gurugram police, till night of September 16, when Manchanda’s family finally came to know that he was murdered and his body was dumped in Badshahpur. Delhi police have arrested Manchanda’s former colleague Anya Vats and her partner Saiyam Sachdeva for murdering him. The duo lived in a society in Gurugram’s Sector 70 when they murdered Manchanda.