E-Paper
‘How can body be cremated with belongings?’: Court raps Gurugram cops over Yuvraj Manchanda murder probe
The court also flagged the absence of postmortem videography and discrepancies in two autopsy reports.
Prefer HTon Google
A Delhi court on Saturday grilled Gurugram Police over the handling and cremation of real estate sales professional Yuvraj Singh Manchanda’s body, questioning why basic legal procedures were not followed and observing that the lapses deprived his family of their “rights to perform his last rites”.
Calling the sequence of events a “shocking state of affairs”, Judicial Magistrate First Class Rahul Jain flagged failures, including not informing an executive magistrate about the inquest, not preserving belongings and viscera, and not uploading details of the unidentified body on ZIPNET.
The court was hearing a plea by Manchanda’s sister, Harsimran, through senior advocate Amit Prasad, seeking preservation and production of records and digital material related to his death. The court reserved its order on the application and said it would consider the sister’s apprehensions raised in the plea.
Also Read | Yuvraj Singh Manchanda targeted for money: Former colleague Anya Vats tells cops
“Isn’t it the norm to inform the nearest executive magistrate of the Sub-divisional magistrate on the second day from recovery itself regarding inquest proceedings for the unidentified body? Why wasn’t it carried out,” the court asked the Gurugram police officer present during the proceedings.
An inquest is a legal inquiry into the circumstances of a sudden, unnatural or suspicious death.
The judge also questioned the cremation of Manchanda’s body along with his belongings, after Prasad submitted that a burnt watch and kada were recovered from the cremation site. “How can a body be cremated along with the belongings? How can the law not be followed?” the court asked.
The court further questioned the failure to upload details of the unidentified body on ZIPNET, the police network used by Delhi, Haryana and other northern states to share information on missing persons and unidentified bodies. “Do you not upload details of an unidentified body on ZIPNET in cases of murder or otherwise? Isn’t that the procedure followed by Gurugram Police?” the judge asked.
The court also flagged the absence of postmortem videography and discrepancies between two postmortem reports, one mentioning bullet injuries and the other attributing the cause of death to asphyxiation due to antemortem drowning. “The postmortem reports are different, one mentions bullet injuries and the other asphyxiation due to antemortemn drowning. How can such basic procedures be skipped?” the court asked.
It also took note of the fact that the viscera had not been preserved during the post-mortem.
The judge rebuked the officer from Gurugram’s Badshahpur police station who was present in court, observing that he had “no concrete response” to the questions. “The complainant not only lost her brother by cremating his (Manchanda’s) body, you snatched away he family’s right to dutifully carry out his last rites,” the court remarked.
Prasad alleged that the police actions amounted to destruction of evidence and were intended to “save the culprits”, arguing that the court had the ancillary powers to issue directions over the handling of the deceased’s body.
The court had on Thursday observed that the Gurugram Police had “botched up” the case and carried out a “complete hotch potch” in handling Manchanda’s body.
According to Delhi Police, Manchanda was last seen by his sisters on September 6 after dropping them at Lajpat Nagar market and leaving for a meeting in Gurugram. Police allege that he was murdered the same night by his former colleague Anya Vats and her partner Sanyam Sachdeva.
Investigators allege that the duo drove around Gurugram for two days with Manchanda’s body in Vats’s SUV before dumping it in a sewer on September 8. Gurugram Police recovered the body on September 10.
Delhi Police has said Manchanda’s family did not approach it until September 11 because the accused allegedly used his phone to send messages to relatives, creating the impression that he was alive.
Vats and Sachdeva were arrested from Kaichi Dham in Uttarakhand on September 16. During interrogation, they allegedly disclosed details of the murder and disposal of the body, following which Delhi Police contacted Gurugram Police and obtained information about the unidentified-body case.
The family’s plea alleges that the Badshahpur police cremated Manchanda’s body as that of an unidentified person on September 14, despite an FIR over his disappearance having been registered at Lajpat Nagar police station three days earlier.
It further alleges that photographs and details of the body were not uploaded on ZIPNET between September 10, when it was recovered, and September 14, when it was cremated, and were uploaded only on September 16.
