Hyderabad: The High Court of Telangana has directed the government to once again conduct the postmortem of the four accused in the Hyderabad rape and murder case, who were killed in an encounter, by 5pm on Monday.
The bench of Chief Justice RS Chowhan and Justice Abhishek Reddy said a three-member team of forensic experts of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences must conduct the autopsy and the process should be video recorded. The court directed the officials to keep the evidence in a sealed cover and then hand over the bodies to the families.
Hearing the case, the HC sought to know about the condition of the bodies from the superintendent of Gandhi Hospital, Dr Sravan Kumar. Kumar informed the court that the bodies were 50 per cent decomposed and would completely decompose in another five to six days.
The court asked the superintendent if there was any provision in the country to safeguard the bodies to which Kumar replied in the negative. The court then instructed that a second postmortem be conducted by 5pm on December 23.
Advocate General DS Prasad argued during the hearing that the family members of the deceased had not asked for a re-postmortem. “We don’t have any objection to another post-mortem but conduct it with the forensic experts of Telangana state,” he said.
The Chief Justice rejected the argument and ordered the process under AIIMS experts.
The decision of the high court comes at a time when the Supreme Court has asked for evidence and other details. The apex court has already appointed a three-member judicial commission for an independent probe to ascertain whether the encounter was genuine.
The four were arrested on November 29 for allegedly raping and killing a 26-year-old veterinarian by smothering her and later torching the body after dumping it under the culvert.
They were gunned down on December 6 at Chattanpalli when they were taken to the crime scene near the culvert for a reconstruction. The Cyberabad Police had said its personnel resorted to "retaliatory" firing after two of the accused opened fire at police after snatching their weapons besides attacking the latter with stones and sticks, resulting in injuries to two policemen.
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