New Delhi: Questioning how a body recovered as ‘unidentified’ could be cremated before police had completed basic identification procedures, a Delhi court Tuesday observed “clear negligence and a failure to follow standard operating procedures” by Gurgaon Police in the handling of real estate executive Yuvraj Singh Manchanda’s body.
It directed the Gurgaon DCP to file a report on the lapses — delayed ZIPNET entry, failure to conduct post-mortem videography and inform the executive magistrate — within two weeks and summoned on Oct 15 the doctor who conducted the post mortem to explain discrepancies in his report. Manchanda was murdered Sept 6, allegedly by his former colleague Anya Vats and her partner Sanyam Sachdeva. A missing-person report was registered Sept 11.
The complainant not only lost her brother to allegedly a brutal murder, but could not even see or cremate his body due to the lapses of Gurgaon Police,” Jain said.
Saying the role of police officials and the doctor in disposing of the body while flouting norms to cause disappearance of evidence “cannot be ruled out”, the court directed investigation under BNS Section 238. The court also noted the body’s details were uploaded under the “Unidentified Person Found” category instead of “Unidentified Dead Body”. The court said although the body was kept in a mortuary for 72 hours “on paper”, the failure to upload its details during that period made the exercise meaningless. It further flagged the failure to inform the executive magistrate as required under BNSS Section 194 and noted police relied on a “local property dealer’s claim” that the deceased had drowned without properly examining suspicious circumstances or preserving the site. Finding serious deficiencies in the post-mortem and noting no videography or photography was conducted on Sept 14, it described the report as “grossly deficient and incomplete”. the report recorded “nil” external injuries, “no abnormality detected” in several internal structures, and concluded death was due to ante-mortem drowning While disclosure by the accused indicated Manchanda was shot twice near the neck.
The directions came on Manchanda’s sister Harsimran ’s plea seeking production of records relating to his body’s identification and cremation. “There was a delay of six crucial days in uploading this data. This delay not only affected evidence preservation but also denied the family their right to perform the last rites. It explained that ZIPNET allows police to circulate details of unidentified bodies across police units and match them with missing-person reports.
Criticising the cremation that effectively ended the family’s opportunity to perform the last rites, judicial magistrate Rahul Jain said while the body was recovered at 4.05pm on Sept 10, its details and photographs were uploaded on ZIPNET only on Sept 16, two days after it was cremated.