HC orders second post-mortem in quota violence-related death

The Gujarat High Court today directed that a second post-mortem be conducted in a case of custodial death of a 32-year-old youth of the Patel community who had succumbed to his injuries during the reservation stir yesterday after he was allegedly beaten by the police here.
"Since the body of Swetang (the 32-year-old youth of the Patel community) is still in the custody of the Civil Hospital authorities, I direct that the second postmortem be performed at the earliest," Justice J B Pardiwala of the High Court ordered.
"The second post-mortem shall be performed by a team of four medical officers. The Head of the Department of Forensic Science shall be one of the officers in the team who will perform the second post-mortem. The post-mortem Report shall be prepared and produced tomorrow before this Court," added the order.

The HC also ordered that the post-mortem be videographed and that the body of the youth be preserved until further order.
"It goes without saying that since this is a case of custodial death, the post mortem shall be videographed," said the order.
"The body of Swetang shall not be disposed of until further orders, which shall be passed tomorrow at 11.00 am. The body of Swetang shall be maintained well and kept in the morgue," the HC order said.

The High Court also issued a notice to Gujarat government, Director General of Police P C Thakur, Police Commissioner of the city Shivananad Jha and the inspector of Bapunagar police station, P D Parmar, while posting hearing the matter for tomorrow.

Earlier, Swetang's post-mortem was conducted in Civil Hospital in the city but the content of the report has not been made public.
According to the plea moved by Prabhaben Patel, mother of the deceased Swetang, her son was allegedly beaten by the police and ultimately he succumbed to the injuries.
Patel said in the plea that her son was in the house at about 10.30 pm on August 25 when a few police officers had entered their housing society, broke the wind screen of cars and other vehicles parked in the society and forcibly took away Swetang and four other persons who were sleeping.

"Swetang was one of the five persons who was picked up by the police in the night. He was mercilessly beaten on the main road and thereafter he was taken to Bapunagar police station," said the plea.