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Assam mistaken identity case: Body exhumed for DNA testing
On February 25, a woman claimed the person police claimed to have killed in an exchange of fire was her husband and not the dacoit he was passed off as
A man’s body has been exhumed for DNA testing in Assam’s Udalguri after a woman claimed it was that of her husband and not of an alleged dacoit whom police claimed to have shot dead in an exchange of fire.
On February 24, police claimed that two suspected criminals opened fire on them and one of them died in retaliatory firing. Police later identified the person killed as Kenaram Basumutary, a former member of the separatist National Democratic Front of Boroland.
On February 25, the woman claimed the person killed was her husband Dimbeshwar Muchahary and not Basumutary.
Police superintendent Supriya Das said the woman claimed she saw pictures on social media and realised her husband had been killed and sought a magisterial inquiry and DNA testing to establish his identity.
The woman said her husband went missing on February 24.
Das said they exhumed the body on Monday after receiving an order from it. “It has been kept in a morgue and once we receive separate order to conduct DNA testing, we will proceed further.”
In a statement, the Assam Police said Muchahary was also a criminal. “Dimbeshwar was an absconder as per our records. He was an accused in robberies and arms smuggling cases and he was arrested with ammunition in the past.”
They added two police personnel were also injured in the exchange of fire and that some arms were also recovered from the shootout scene.
Chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has directed a Criminal Investigation Department inquiry into the incident days within two weeks apart from the magisterial probe.
The Assam Police have drawn flak for a series of “encounters”, a term often used for extrajudicial killings.
Lawyer Arif Jwadder moved the Gauhati high court last year seeking a Central Bureau of Investigation probe into the alleged extrajudicial killings.
in December, the state government said 30 people were killed and 12 others injured in police action in Assam over the last two years. It maintained none of them were “encounters”.
