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Whose skeleton was found?: 837 days on, Kanpur’s Ekta Gupta case still awaits one crucial answer
DNA report on skeletal recovered in Ekta Gupta murder case remains awaited, even as the trial has already reached the witness examination stage
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837 days after Ekta Gupta went missing in Kanpur, a crucial question in the murder case remains unanswered: whether the skeleton recovered from a pit at the Officers’ Club adjoining the district magistrate’s residence actually belonged to her. With the case already in trial, police are still awaiting the DNA report that could establish the identity of the remains.
The case began on June 24, 2024, when Ekta’s husband, Rahul Gupta, a Civil Lines resident, lodged a complaint at Kotwali police station alleging that his wife had been abducted after being drugged. Her gym trainer, Vimal Kumar alias Vimal Soni, a resident of Shakkar Mill Khalwa, was named as the accused.
According to police sources, DNA reports involving skeletal remains generally take 45 to 90 days. In the Ekta case, however, the report has remained pending. The initial delay was in arresting the accused, allowing the buried body to decompose to the point that only skeletal remains were recovered. The subsequent delay in obtaining the DNA report has left a crucial evidentiary question unresolved.
Police arrested Vimal four months later, on October 6. During questioning, he allegedly revealed that Ekta had been murdered. Acting on his information, police dug up a pit at the Officers’ Club and claimed to have recovered bones and skeletal remains of Ekta.
Joint commissioner of police (JCP), crime and headquarters, Sankalp Sharma, said the DNA report was crucial to the investigation. “Both the police and the court have written to the Forensic Science Laboratory in Jhansi seeking the report. In all likelihood, it will arrive within a week or two,” he said.
The soil from the pit and that found with the skeleton were reportedly found to be identical, indicating that the remains had been buried at the spot. But the identity of the skeleton still awaits DNA confirmation.
Police subsequently filed a 70-page chargesheet against Vimal. The court framed charges relating to abduction, murder and destruction of evidence, and the trial is now under way.
Several prosecution witnesses have already recorded their statements. ADGC Sanjay Kumar Jha said the court had recorded the statements of Ekta’s husband Rahul Gupta, her brother Himanshu Gupta, FSL scientists, the woman sub-inspector who prepared the inquest report and the doctors who conducted the post-mortem examination.
The testimony of the first investigating officer, Rashtradeep Singh, who had overseen Vimal’s arrest and the subsequent recovery of the skeleton, has also been completed.
The forensic head constable is scheduled to depose on October 9, the ADGC said.
