Firing outside Salman Khan's home: High Court directs Punjab to conduct second postmortem examination of accused

Saurabh Malik

Chandigarh, May 8

Just about a fortnight after firing outside actor Salman Khan’s house in Bandra, the Punjab and Haryana High Court on Wednesday directed the State of Punjab to conduct a second postmortem examination of an accused, who died in police custody.

The direction by Justice Vinod S Bhardwaj came on a fresh petition filed against the State of Punjab and other respondents by Reeta Devi through counsel Davinder Singh Khurana.

She was seeking directions to the respondents to “initiate and conduct” fresh postmortem examination of her son Anuj Kumar, “who tragically passed away while in police custody”.

Taking up the matter, Justice Bhardwaj asserted the petitioner might handover the body of her son Anuj Kumar to Guru Gobind Singh Medical College at Faridkot by May 10 and would appear before the medical superintendent for necessary compliance.

Justice Bhardwaj also referred to the peculiar facts of the case before observing that a mother was apprehensive about her son’s death. Referring to the arguments before the court, and noticing that serious objection had not been raised to the postmortem being re-conducted by the State, the Bench disposed of the petition with the direction.

Justice Bhardwaj added that the direction was being passed without commenting on the merits of the matter and without impleading the State of Maharashtra, where a criminal case had already been registered and the investigation proceedings were pending

In her earlier petition against the Union of India, the State of Punjab and other respondents, the petitioner had contended: “As the son died in police custody and there are so many leaders and influential persons who gave the statement before death, the possibility of involvement of police can be there.

The earlier postmortem was conducted at Mumbai in the control of the same police in whose custody Anuj died and the police said it is suicide. So for proper and just investigation, the re-conduct of postmortem is necessary and in the interest of justice”.

Going into the background of the matter, she submitted that Anuj, one of the accused in the firing incident outside Salman Khan’s house, was arrested on April 23 by the Maharashtra Police.

A Special MCOCA (Maharashtra Control of Organized Crime Act) Court in Mumbai remanded him to police custody on April 29 till May 8. But the petitioner’s son died in custody of Mumbai police on May 1.

“As per the police story, Anuj hung himself inside the toilet of the lockup, using a bed sheet. He was rushed to the State-run GT Hospital, where he was declared dead during treatment”.