Kolkata: The Calcutta High Court has directed West Bengal Police to exhume the body of IIT Kharagpur student Faizan Ahmed, who was found dead in his hostel room last year, and conduct a second postmortem. The order comes after a court-appointed forensic expert submitted a preliminary report before the single-judge bench of Justice Rajasekhar Mantha Tuesday.
The court order mentions that the direction for the fresh postmortem is based on three key findings of the forensic report, which hints at lapses in the first post-mortem conducted in October last year.
The court’s attention was also drawn to the fact that a chemical, usually used to preserve meat, was recovered from the room in which the body was found.
Twenty-three-year-old Faizan Ahmed, a third-year mechanical engineering student at IIT Kharagpur, was found dead in room C-205 of the institute’s Lala Lajpat Rai hostel on 14 October last year. He was last seen three days before, on 11 October.
The first post-mortem was conducted a day after the body was discovered, on 15 October. Though police have filed two FIRs in the case, the accused are currently out on bail.
Residents of Assam’s Tinsukia district, Faizan’s family moved Calcutta High Court last year, dissatisfied with the police investigation and alleged cover-up attempt by IIT Kharagpur to safeguard the institute’s reputation.
Speaking to ThePrint, Faizan’s uncle, Rasheed Ahmed said, they welcome the Calcutta High Court decision as they hadn’t been satisfied by the first postmortem report.
“It feels like justice won’t elude us. We too wanted a second post-mortem to be conducted and that is happening. Faizan’s mother has completely broken down. She has stopped eating food. The loss has had such an impact on our lives. But we are happy that the Calcutta High Court is listening to this matter intently and we pray that at the end, justice is delivered,” Ahmed said.
A fact-finding report submitted by IIT Kharagpur before the Calcutta HC on 12 December last year had concluded that Faizan was suffering from mental health issues.
“In the absence of the post-mortem report that the committee has no access to, our observation is that Faizan Ahmed was suffering from mental health issues immediately before his death. Possibility of suicide cannot be ruled out,” the report, signed by professor Khanindra Pathak chairman of the fact-finding committee, had stated.
ThePrint has a copy of the report.
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What the forensic report says
Dr Ajay Kumar Gupta, a retired professor of forensic medicine and technology, West Bengal Medical Education Service was appointed by the Calcutta High Court on 29 March, to carry out a forensic examination of Faizan’s post-mortem report and ascertain the cause and manner of Faizan’s death.
In a three-page preliminary report placed before Justice Mantha Tuesday, Dr. Gupta said the examination of the postmortem report and the videography of the procedure are not sufficient to conclude the actual cause of death, ThePrint has learnt.
He, however, highlighted three key findings — that two visible injury marks on the back of the head aren’t mentioned in the postmortem report. The report claimed that doctors carrying out the postmortem had not examined the base of the skull, which ought to have been examined, and that certain cut marks on Faizan’s arms were clearly inflicted after his death.
Dr Gupta along with the amicus curiae in the case, advocate Sandip Bhattacharya visited the IIT Kharagpur campus on 17 March to carry out forensic examinations in room C-205 of Lala Lajpat Rai Hostel, where the semi-decomposed body had been found last year.
In the report placed before the court Tuesday, Dr Gupta opined that conducting a second postmortem is essential and the body should be exhumed as soon as possible.
The ‘yellow residue’
During the hearing, advocate Bhattacharya placed before the judge a police seizure report from 17 November last year, which mentions a bottle of emplura, or sodium nitrate, was seized from the hostel room. This chemical is usually used to preserve meat, said Bhattacharya.
The court order mentions Bhattacharya as saying that while carrying out the forensic examination Dr. Gupta and he found a bucket in room C-205 with some yellow residue.
“It is submitted that when a body decomposes, it is impossible that the fellow inmates of the hostel would not be able to detect it. There was mysteriously no smell from the body for 3 days. The presence of this chemical Emplura (Sodium Nitrate) opens up serious questions as regards the time of death and whether it may have been used to preserve the body after the death of the victim,” reads the Calcutta High Court order.
2 FIRs, suspects out on bail
The Calcutta High Court has asked West Bengal Police to coordinate with Assam Police and expedite the procedure to exhume Faizan’s body from where he was buried, in his hometown in Tinsukia. The court has given the responsibility to Dr Gupta to carry out the second postmortem in the presence of doctors who conducted the first procedure in Kolkata.
“Some legal formalities need to be complied with in Assam to exhume the body, but the total proceedings need to be completed by one month as per Calcutta High Court order,” said advocate Aniruddha Mitra, who is representing Faizan’s family.
So far, the state’s Paschim Medinipur Police have filed two FIRs in the case, the first on 16 October last year, under section 302 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) for murder and the second on 18 February this year under sections 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 506 (criminal intimidation), 201 (giving false information or disappearance of evidence), 34 (criminal act done by several persons in furtherance of common intention), 188 (disobedience to an order lawfully promulgated by a public servant) and section 341 (wrongfully restrains any person).
The Police have also invoked the West Bengal Prohibition of Ragging in Educational Institutions, Act 2002 in the second FIR.
ThePrint has accessed both FIRs.
While the first FIR for murder is against unknown persons, the second FIR names five IIT Kharagpur students, the former warden of Rajendra Prasad Hall, IIT Kharagpur and one assistant professor of the institute, who was the assistant warden (maintenance).
All seven are currently out on bail.
(Edited by Poulomi Banerjee)