Kochi: The Kerala High Court on Wednesday rejected a plea seeking re-postmortem of the bodies of two Maoists killed in an alleged encounter in Nilambur forests.
The petition was filed by D. Sreedharan, brother of deceased Kuppuswami alias Kuppu Devaraj, seeking to conduct a re-postmortem of the bodies of Kuppuswami and Kaveri alias Ajitha preserved at the Medical College Hospital, Kozhikode.
The petitioner alleged tha his brother was caught alive and then killed. The postmortem was conducted by two junior police surgeons and a junior lady resident medical officer having no experience of firearm injuries and done in the absence of the head of the department of forensic science of the medical college. Hence, the petitioner sought re-postmortem in the presence of Dr N.R. Prithvi Rajan, forensic expert, Chennai and preservation of the bodies for a week.
He argued that to establish a brutal fake encounter with firearm, a thorough infra-red photography of the body along with hysto-pathological examination of the wounded tissues ought to have been collected in the postmortem, which the junior police surgeons avoided for the reasons best known to them, the petition stated.
The state government submitted that there was no need to conduct a re-postmortem as it was conducted by a team of doctors having sufficient experience in this field. Postmortem is an opinion of evidence by the doctors. So no re-postmortem is required considering the factual aspect, it said.
