
The district administration has ordered a magisterial inquiry into the death of a Chinese national in judicial custody here last month. The Thane sub-divisional magistrate (SDM) will conduct the inquiry into the death of Jiang Changquing in the district jail on September 2, an official release said today. The 48-year-old was lodged in the jail under judicial custody in a diamond theft case. Jiang and another Chinese national Deng Xiaobo (45) were arrested on August 1 for allegedly stealing two diamonds worth Rs 36.5 lakh from an exhibition centre in Mumbai suburb of Goregaon. Both of them were subsequently remanded in judicial custody and lodged in the Thane jail. On August 29, while having lunch with Deng in the prison, Jiang collapsed all of a sudden, jail superintendent Nitin Waychal had then told reporters.
He was rushed to the jail hospital and then taken to the Thane Civil Hospital where doctors declared him brought dead on September 2, he had said. The duo had arrived in Mumbai on July 30 and later visited the jewellery exhibition. The CISF personnel had nabbed Jiang and Deng at the Mumbai international airport minutes before they were to board a flight to Osaka, Japan on July 31, the police had said.