Madras HC orders re-postmortem examination of Saptur youth

MADURAI: The Madurai Bench of Madras High Court ordered exhumation and repostmortem examination on the body of a 20-year-old man -- Ramesh of Saptur -- upon learning that the first autopsy was not performed by forensic experts and was not videoed properly.

Hearing a petition by Ramesh's brother Santhosh, Justice G R Swaminathan ordered that the repostmortem examination should take place today (Friday) at the burial site. He also requested two forensic experts from Tirunelveli Government Medical College, who had performed the autopsy in Sathankulam custodial deaths case, to do the repostmortem examination on Ramesh's body.
Shortcomings in autopsy

The aforementioned shortcomings in the autopsy came to light after the judge, on Wednesday, permitted Santhosh's counsel to peruse the footage of the autopsy and get an expert opinion on the same. When the case came up for hearing on Thursday, the petitioner's counsel placed the opinions rendered by one Karunakaran Mathiharan, a revising editor of 'Modi's Textbook of Medical Jurisprudence and Toxicology'.
Mathiharan had submitted in his affidavit that though it was mentioned in the autopsy report that the hyoid bone was fractured and the internal organs were congested, the footage neither shows the examination nor the dissection of the aforesaid organs. Moreover, there is no mention of the condition of the victim's back, hands and legs and the parts are not shown in the footage as well, he pointed out.

The judge also noted that even though the autopsy was conducted for over an hour, the footage only has 26 video clips (a runtime of 6 minutes and 9 seconds), violating the guidelines that obliges videoing of autopsy without interruption and in full.

Justice Swaminathan castigated the Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) of District Crime Branch (DCB) for submitting a false status report that the 'entire' autopsy was videoed. He also questioned why the autopsy was not performed by forensic experts.

Ramesh was found hanging from a tree on September 17, a day after he was summoned by Saptur police in connection with the case of a missing girl. Ramesh's family allege that he died due to custodial torture.