CCTV footages reveals botched up investigation

Surat: The closed circuit television (CCTV) footages of the 32-year-old diamond polisher Mukesh Naval Zapadiya, who was found dead on December 20 last year at Matawadi in Varachha, reveal that the police had botched up the investigation into his death. It is visible in the footages that some people had slapped and pushed Zapadiya before he died. Initially, the police registered a case of accidental death, but later established in their investigation that he had died due to poisoning of ethyl alcohol.
Police did not show the CCTV footages of the incident to relatives of the deceased. Cops told them that the CCTV recorder was sent to forensic science laboratory (FSL) for probe when they expressed the wish to see the footages at the police station. The CCTV footages were made available to senior police officers for examination only after TOI had raised the issue. City police commissioner Satish Sharma has ordered an inquiry into the young man’s death. The inquiry has been handed over to police inspector, Varachha police station, M P Patel. Ironically, Varachha police had failed to do anything in the case to the satisfaction of family members of the deceased.

“The CCTV footages show that the deceased was slapped and pushed by some people before he died. I have ordered an inquiry by the police inspector to find out the facts of the case. Alcohol was not found in the blood of the deceased, but detected in stomach wash during postmortem. We will question the doctors again to understand this since no outer or internal injury was found on the deceased during postmortem,” Sharma said. Zapadiya, father of three kids, was found dead under mysterious circumstances at Matawadi. A case of accid-ental death was registered initially, but postmortem repo-rt revealed that he had died of poisoning of ethyl alcohol and so the cops in their complaint described him as toddy addict.