The Madras High Court has directed Villupuram Collector to exhume the body of an individual suspected to have died due to custodial torture on April 10, and issued a consequential direction to the Director of Medical Education (DME) to make arrangements for performing a re-postmortem.
Justice R. Sakthivel passed the orders on a writ petition filed by R. Anju, wife of the deceased K. Raja, after being convinced with the arguments of her counsel Henri Tiphagne that there was reasonable doubt of custodial torture by Villupuram police and therefore a re-postmortem must be conducted.
“As a matter of fact, if re-postmortem is conducted and the result negatives the contention of the writ petitioner, it would only enhance the reputation of the police among the public. Therefore, in the interest of justice, the re-postmortem must be conducted,” the judge said.
