The Calcutta High Court on April 25 directed to conduct a second post-mortem of the body of Indian Institute of Technology-Kharagpur student Faizan Ahmed, who was found dead under mysterious circumstances, at the institute in October 2022.
Justice Rajasekhar Mantha directed the investigating officer to bring the body to Kolkata from Dibrugarh in Assam, for a second post-mortem. The court ordered that the autopsy be held at the Calcutta Medical College within a month. The next hearing of the case will be in June.
Faizan Ahmed, a third year mechanical engineering student at IIT, was found dead at the institute’s hostel on October 14. The family members approached the Calcutta High Court seeking a probe into the death of the student.
During the hearing of the matter, the High Court had a number of times, raised questions on the role of IIT-Kharagpur authorities and added that the incident appeared to be a clear case of “ragging”. The Court had summoned IIT-Kharagpur director V.K. Tewari and asked him as to what steps he had taken to curb incidents of ragging in the campus.
In February this year, Justice Mantha ordered a forensic probe into the death. The court engaged Ajay Kumar Gupta, formerly associated with the Department of Forensic and State Medicine, Institute of Post Graduate Medical Education and Research, to conduct the inquiry.
The lawyer representing Faizan Ahmed said before the court that the report given by forensic experts said that the victim had received a severe blow on the back of his head. The student’s wrist had been cut to give an impression that it was a case of suicide, the lawyer alleged.
The lawyer also mentioned a report by the Additional Police Superintendent, Purba Medinipur to the court where some drugs had been found, adding that the post-mortem report was completely silent on the cause of death.
Rehana Ahmed, the mother of the deceased, alleged non-cooperation from the university authorities and a cover-up on their part of the entire incident.
