BHUBANESWAR: The Crime Branch (CB) of Odisha Police has requested the Health department to initiate departmental action against a former medical officer of Mayurbhanj district for taking 11 months to submit a post-mortem report in a case of alleged rape and murder.
The delay, the letter said, may have hindered the probe in the sensitive case.
In a letter to the secretary of the Health and Family Welfare department, the CID said Badampahar police station in Mayurbhanj district had registered a case of unnatural death on October 3, 2022 and the enquiring officer sent the woman’s body to Rairangpur sub-divisional hospital (SDH) for postmortem the same day.
The then medical officer of the hospital conducted the post-mortem but sent the autopsy report to the enquiring officer almost after one year on September 20, 2023.
The report, interestingly, suggested that the victim had suffered antemortem injuries and postmortem drowning. It said that the cause of the death was possibly due to multiple head injuries leading to subarachnoid hemorrhage and neurogenic shock which were antemortem in nature, the letter signed by IG Shefeen Ahamed stated.
The report also mentioned that the injuries to the victim’s genitalia and labia minora suggested that she was sexually assaulted and thus it was a clear case of rape and murder, read the CB’s letter.
“The medical officer should have promptly sent the postmortem report for further follow-up action,” it said adding, due to delay by the medical officer in submitting the woman’s autopsy report, the enquiry into the case did not progress for almost one year.
In the meantime, vital clues may have disappeared hampering the investigation of such a heinous case, said the CB letter.
The agency requested the Health department secretary to initiate necessary departmental action against the erring medical officer.
It also urged the department to give instructions to the medical officers specifying a time limit to issue postmortem and injury reports in medico-legal cases, especially in heinous crimes like rape and murder.