A local court has initiated probe against Delhi police officials who "deliberately" made attempts to hide evidence, ignore witnesses, and dress up a murder to make it appear a suicide.
The order by Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Sumedh Kumar Sethi of Dwarka court has been communicated to the Police Commissioner, who has been asked to initiate departmental enquiry against the alleged misdeeds committed by the concerned policemen involved with the investigation of the case and report on the action taken by March 28.
The case related to the death of a budding hotel management trainee Arnav Duggal, who was found hanging from a ceiling fan at a group housing society flat in Shakuntalam Apartments in Dwarka Sector 10 on June 13, 2017. At the time of the incident, he was with his friend Megha and the flat where the incident took place belonged to her father.
Arnav's parents and their counsel PK Dey demolished the police theory that the boy committed suicide. The boy was six feet tall, weighing 80 kgs and police put forth a case of suicide by claiming that he climbed on the bed and hung himself from the ceiling fan. Interestingly, the distance between the bed and fan was five feet and the fan was above the bed.
Shockingly, police had no photograph of the ceiling fan from which the body was brought down. This was the turning point of the case. The owner, who was Megha's father, claimed that the fan bent due to the impact and was sold off as scrap. But a photograph with the deceased boy's family showed the fan to be intact in shape with cobweb and dust over it. The court observed this was impossible since a cloth placed around the fan by the deceased will disturb the cobweb and the settled dust.
The girl Megha claimed that she brought down the body although she made no attempt to save the boy by calling police, doctor, neighbour or the boy's family. Her statement was "blindly accepted" as gospel truth and even her lie detector test was "rudimentary", seemingly a formality. The Court noted that a police officer of Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) rank was allegedly transferred from Delhi after the incident. The boy's family claimed that he ACP was related to Megha's friend.
But what proved to be the final nail to punch holes in police case was a submission by advocate Dey, who pointed out that in a case of hanging, ligature mark is present on the front or on the side of neck. Also, in the present case, the ligature mark merged with the hairline going to the back of the neck. This made the court sit up and observe, "It seems a deliberate attempt is being made right from the beginning to take the probe in this matter in the direction of a suicide." The Court ordered reopening of investigation and ordered a fresh case to be lodged on the complaint by the boy's parents.
