CBI medical panel to probe Vyapam deaths of journalist, MBBS student

Six months after CBI began examining the controversial deaths of MBBS student Namrata Damor and television journalist Akshay Singh in its Vyapam scam probe, the agency set up a medical board in each of the cases to resolve contradictory forensic findings and deciding if any foul play was involved in them.

Six months after CBI began examining the controversial deaths of MBBS student Namrata Damor and television journalist Akshay Singh in its Vyapam scam probe, the agency set up a medical board in each of the cases to resolve contradictory forensic findings and deciding if any foul play was involved in them.

Namrata Damor, an accused in the Vyapam scam, was found dead on railway tracks in 2012. (File Photo)

CBI had last July decided to probe the Damor case and filed a preliminary enquiry to look into Singh’s death, gathering relevant police records. “CBI set up two medical boards, comprising experts from premier health institutions, to resolve the differences in opinions that have emerged in cases related to the deaths of Namrata Damor and Akshay Singh,” said a CBI source.

The source said, “The medical board experts will have consultations with the doctors who had carried out the initial autopsies and forensic experts who later gave opinions, at time differing with the postmortem reports.”

Akshay Singh of TV channel Aaj Tak died in Jhabua.

The source said, “In medicolegal proceedings, the autopsy reports get primacy but there could be subsequent contrary opinions, which a medical board can resolve to arrive at the facts.”

The body of Indore medical student Damor was found near railway tracks in Ujjain in January 2012 an initial post-mortem suggesting she was murdered though a forensic expert later contradicted it by saying the death could have been accidental. Singh died in July 4 last year shortly after collapsing while talking to the father of Damor at her home.