HYDERABAD: Dr Sudhir K Gupta, professor and HOD of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology at AIIMS, New Delhi, who led a panel of doctors to conduct a second autopsy on the bodies of the four accused in the rape and murder of a veterinarian, deposed before the three-member commission set up by the Supreme Court to look into the ‘encounter’ deaths of the accused.
During his deposition on Thursday, September 30, 2021, Dr Sudhir Gupta told the commission that while conducting the postmortem examination, they found “abrasion collar” on the bodies of the accused which suggested that they died due to “ante-mortem firearm missile injuries”.
When asked as to how they concluded that one of the injuries on the body of Mohd Arif, an accused, was “a graze of abrasion consistent with a grazing bullet injury”, Dr Sudhir stated: “Since it’s a firearm missile case, the pattern of abrasion is graze”.
He also stated that from the nature of firearm injuries, it was not possible to give an opinion on the size or velocity of the bullets and also the distance between the firearm and the deceased at the time of firing. “According to wound ballistic, a doctor can opine only whether the deceased was in the range of scorching, burning, blackening and tattooing,” he added.
Dr Sudhir told the commission that in this case, they could not give any such opinion as they have not received the ballistic reports. He also stated that they have noticed abrasions around entry wounds at the time of the examination of the four bodies and they have been mentioned as “abrasion collar of the wound” in the postmortem examination reports.
“The cause of death of the four accused has been mentioned in the final opinion furnished by their panel on November 2, 2020,” Dr Sudhir added. Dr Sudhir, along with his team of doctors Sudhir Chandran, Abhishek Yadav and Adarsh Kumar, conducted autopsy at Gandhi hospital on December 23, 2019.