New Delhi: A blame game has erupted between Gurgaon Police and the medical officer who conducted the postmortem of Delhi-based real estate professional Yuvraj Singh Manchanda, with both accusing each other of procedural lapses in handling the body and his belongings.
The 31-year-old was allegedly murdered on Sept 6 in Gurgaon by former colleague Anya Vats and her partner Sanyam Sachdeva, Delhi Police has found. His body was recovered on Sept 10 and cremated on Sept 14, while a missing-person report was registered at Lajpat Nagar police station in Delhi on Sept 11.
Judicial magistrate first class Rahul Jain directed the doctor to submit the relevant standard operating procedure at the next hearing on Oct 27, after Neharika Kushwaha, the counsel of complainant Harsimran , Manchanda’s sister, submitted that both police and the medical officer were trying to blame each other, while “both are at fault”. Kushwaha said the postmortem report didn’t clearly mention which belongings were handed over to Gurgaon Police. “If the belonging were indeed handed over to police, then the watch and kada couldn’t have been found from the cremation ground,” the order recorded the SHO as submitting. Police submitted that protocol required the belongings to be handed over in a separate bag, whereas in this case, “only the body was handed over”.
The complainant pointed out that Delhi Police ’s investigation had indicated that Manchanda was shot twice near the neck, unlike the the postmortem report that concluded the cause of death as ante-mortem drowning. The station house officer (SHO) of Badshahpur police station contended that the medical officer did not hand over the belongings as per protocol and police had to recover Manchanda’s watch and kada from the cremation ground. The recovery of the watch and kada from the cremation ground, the SHO argued, indicated that the belongings were not packed separately. The complainant has sought preservation and production of records relating to her brother’s recovery, identification and cremation.
the doctor said the viscera were not preserved for forensic examination as police described the case as not “suspicious” While police alleged in the court that the doctor had failed to preserve the “jaang ki haddi” (thigh bone) for DNA testing and conduct a mandatory X-ray.