Suicide or murder? A father’s dogged quest for truth & justice places hope on a CBI probe
Suresh Kumar refuses to believe his daughter, Yukti Chabbra, a nursing student in AIIMS Rishikesh, had committed suicide in June 2014.
Suresh Kumar refuses to believe his only daughter, Yukti Chabbra, a nursing student of AIIMS Rishikesh, had committed suicide three years ago, as police concluded.
His dogged quest to find “her murderer” has almost turned him into an investigator. Armed with uninvestigated loopholes and a few RTI applications, the Delhi native got the Uttarakhand high court to order the CBI to probe the “murder” and “destruction of evidence” in the case.
The badly bruised body of Yukti was found hanging in her hostel room in Rishikesh-based All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in June 2014. After a suicide note was found, police concluded that the 19-year-old girl had killed herself.
But Kumar refused to buy that.
“There were deep wounds on her head, feet and arms. Her room, including the bathroom, had blood stains everywhere. Did she have the strength to hang herself after losing such a huge amount of blood?” he asked.
“They said she hanged herself by tying the noose. But my only daughter didn’t know how to tie the knot. I and my wife, as indulgent parents, could never teach her tying the knot. Her mother was always there for tying knots of her salwars and pyjamas. When she went to study nursing at Rishikesh, my wife got her salwars with elastic due to her inability to tie knots,” Kumar said.
“Her classmates too hinted at something wrong, but they were not allowed to speak to me,” Kumar told HT.
When the Uttarakhand police did not register any FIR on charges of murder, he approached a lower court under section 156(3) of CrPC. Following the directions of the court, an FIR was registered but the investigation did not move an inch, Kumar said.
He then approached the former state chief minister, Harish Rawat who agreed to send the case to the CBI for investigation. But the CBI refused to take the case citing shortage of manpower.
Kumar then filed RTI applications with the police to get copy of case documents and approached the high court which finally directed the CBI to take over case in the June this year.
“Since the death of my daughter, I have visited Dehradun and Rishikesh more than 50 times. I have spoken to her friends and classmates and visited their houses in other states to know what exactly happened to my daughter,” he said.
As per some of her friends, Yukti and another girl had a ‘fight’ with two boys and an oral complaint was made to the principal about it. But no effort was made to trace the two boys.
“Her call records were not analysed properly. I don’t even know whether blood samples picked from my daughter’s hostel room were sent for forensic examination. I have also sought expert opinion on the handwriting on her suicide note and I have my doubts whether the handwriting in it is of my daughter’s,” said Kumar, demanding answers to all these questions.
“I am very sure she was murdered and I want to know who killed her,” Kumar said, hoping that the CBI will be able to find the truth.
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