Ranbir shot at close range, says post-mortem
The body of Ranbir Singh, gunned down by Uttarakhand police in an alleged fake encounter, bore 12 marks of bullets fired from close range and 27 other injuries showing that he may have been tortured, his autopsy report revealed as his family demanded a CBI probe into the killing, report Rakesh Ranjan & Peeyush Khandelwal.
The body of Ranbir Singh, an MBA degree holder gunned down by the Uttarakhand police in an alleged fake encounter, bore 12 bullet and 28 wound marks, the post-mortem report said.
The report of the 24-year-old Ghaziabad youth, who was cremated on Sunday, indicated he was shot at a close range and could have been tortured.
His body was cremated at his parental village in Nirozpur Ehma in Baghpat district.
Dehradun SSP Amit Sinha said: “The autopsy report confirmed 10 bullet injuries. The other injuries resulted as the trio had scuffle with the sub-inspector before the incident.”
The report has left in tatters the police's version of what they described as an encounter.
The report, a copy of which is with the HT, says the body of Singh, who was shot by the Dehradun police, had 28 lacerations and abrasion marks.
Many of the wound marks on his chest and other areas had turned black and blue, suggesting that Singh might have been tortured before he was gunned down.
While the body bore a dozen bullet marks on a leg and chest, only two bullets were recovered during the post mortem.
The probable cause of death, the reports says, could be following excessive bleeding and haemorrhage as a result of damage to vital organs due to firearm injuries.
Despite repeated attempts, the two doctors who conducted the post mortem — Anil Arya and Ajit Gairola — couldn’t be contacted for comments.
Several eyewitness accounts claiming the police had arrested Singh on the day of the so-called encounter had exposed the police’s version.
The police maintain Singh assaulted a sub-inspector on duty and was killed after a chase and encounter.
But an employee of Jain Dharamshala, where the youth were staying, said the cops had come around 1.45 pm on Friday (before the “encounter” had taken place) and taken their belongings.
Another eyewitness, Anjum Pervez Khan, an engineer with the Meerut Development Authority, who claims to have fired from his licenced revolver and chased the youth away, told TV channels that police had arrested one of the youth.
A third witness claimed he saw the police bundling Singh into a jeep on Balbir Road.
No police officer was available to react to these accounts.