BENGALURU: The Karnataka High Court on Tuesday directed the state authorities to strictly adhere to the guidelines issued by the Supreme Court’s 2014 guidelines regarding deaths caused by police action.
In light of the Hubbali encounter, the court directed the officials that the body of the accused in the encounter case should be subjected to postmortem by a team of two doctors at the local hospital.
The accused, Ritesh Kumar, allegedly murdered a five-year-old girl in the city. The police had shot dead the accused on April 13, within hours after the crime.
A division bench comprising Chief Justice N V Anjaria and Justice K V Aravind issued the order while hearing a petition filed by the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), Karnataka.
The PUCL moved the High Court with a prayer to direct the authorities to preserve the body of the deceased so that the evidence as may be required during the investigation is available, and if the body is cremated, the evidence would be lost and the rule of law would suffer.
It was also prayed to issue directions to form a special team of autopsy, surgeons, and forensic experts, preferably from New Delhi or a state other than Karnataka, to undertake an independent examination and to do an autopsy of the dead bodies of both the deceased and the victim.
The court directed the authorities to preserve the samples of the parts of the body collected during the autopsy to be made available as may be required for investigation.
The court also directed the authorities to videograph the entire postmortem procedure.
The senior counsel appearing for the petitioner cited the 2014 judgment of the apex court, in which the Supreme Court laid down the guidelines to be observed by the police and other authorities in police encounter cases resulting in the death of persons. He stated that authorities are bound to obey the Supreme Court’s directions.
Advocate General Shashikiran Shetty said the question of cremation does not arise as in such cases, the body, if at all, handed over to the family upon identification, would be permitted to be buried only.
SHRC gets detailed report on Hubballi encounter
The State Human Rights Commission (SHRC) on Tuesday received a detailed report from the Hubballi-Dharwad police commissioner in connection with the death of Ritesh Kumar, a migrant labourer from Bihar, who allegedly raped and murdered a five-year-old girl in Hubballi and was later shot dead in a police encounter.
The five-year-old girl was allegedly kidnapped, raped and murdered by Ritesh in the Ashok Nagar police station limits in Hubballi on Sunday morning. He was arrested by the police the same day and was taken to his residence for spot inspection. He allegedly attacked police by throwing stones and tried to flee the scene. Police sub-inspector Annapurna then shot him in the leg and back. He was later declared dead by doctors.