Plea on collection of evidence from bodies of accused posted

The Telangana High Court has posted to Saturday hearing of a petition seeking collection of evidence from the bodies of the four men suspected of raping and murdering a veterinarian, who were killed in an alleged encounter on December 6.

A division bench ofChiefJusticeRaghvendra Singh Chauhan andJusticeA Abhishek Reddywas hearing a petition filed by some women activists seeking implementation of the Supreme Court orders on collecting evidence from the bodies, among others.

The petitioners submitted that the apex court had left it to the High Court to pass any order towards collecting evidence on the bodies of the deceased.

Advocate General of Telangana argued that the bodies were already subjected to postmortem as per the top court's guidelines and hence there was no necessity for passing any order for re-postmortem.

Amicus curiae D Prakash Reddy contended that the bodies were preserved under the high court direction to consider the necessity of a second postmortem and the Supreme Court had also endorsed it.

The Advocate General requested time till Saturday to file a counter affidavit against the request of the petitioners for re-postmortem.

The four accused were killed in an alleged encounter on the morning of December 6.

Nationwide protests had erupted after the charred body of the woman veterinarian was found at an underpass on the outskirts of Hyderabad on November 28.

She was smothered, raped and then burnt allegedly by the four men and her body was found the next day on November 28 under a culvert on the Hyderabad-Bengaluru national highway.