'Rahul was not shot from close range'

A forensic science report has said that Rahul Raj, who was killed in a shootout aboard a BEST bus, was not shot from close range but from at least four metres away.

Rahul Raj, the youth who was killed in a shootout aboard a BEST bus, was not shot from close range but from at least four metres away, the forensic science report has said.

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"The report was submitted to the city police yesterday. Its findings state that the bullets were fired at Raj from beyond four metres," sources quoting the report said on Saturday.

The bullets were not fired at from point blank range and could be classified as a long distance firing, the sources said.

Earlier, a doctor, who was involved in Raj's autopsy, had said one of the bullets that hit him may have been fired at from a close range.

Raj, a resident of Patna, was killed in a shootout with the police after he held a bus with 12 passengers hostage in suburban Kurla on October 27. The killing sparked a furore with several parties demanding a judicial probe into the incident.

The doctor had said that some blackening found around a bullet wound could indicate that bullets were fired at him from a close range.

The doctor subsequently retracted his statement and police said there was no such report of blackening in the post-mortem report.

"Samples of skin from around the bullet wounds were sent to the Kalina Forensic Science Laboratory in order to assess the distance from which the bullets were fired," the sources said.