Special team to conduct autopsy

CHENNAI: The Madras High Court has constituted a special team of three doctors to conduct post-mortem examination on the body of Sathish Kumar (24), son of advocate S Sankara Subbu of Anna Nagar West.“Considering the nature and magnitude of the allegations and to rule out future allegation of bias regarding post-mortem examination, we are inclined to form special team consisting of the Heads of Department of Forensic Medicine in two Government Medical Colleges and also the Head of the Department of Forensic Medicine of a private medical college, as suggested on behalf of the petitioner,’’ a division bench comprising Justices C Nagappan and PR Sivakumar said on Tuesday.The team should conduct the post-mortem immediately and file its report to the court. The entire post-mortem examination was to be videographed, judges said.The Bench was allowing a miscellaneous petition arising out of a habeas corpus writ petition praying for a direction to the CBI to probe the case. The team would consist of Dr Shanthakumar of MMC, Dr Murugesan of KMC and Dr P Sampathkumar of SRMC.In his petition, Sankara Subbu expressed suspicion that his son could have been done to death by Riyasudhin and Kannan, inspectors attached to the Thirumullaivayal and Avadi Camp police stations respectively.He said that he had represented one Arun Kumar, who had been tortured by the police officials at the two stations, a few months ago. The HC had directed the top cops to take departmental action against the two officers besides ordering a compensation of `25,000. The court also directed the Thiruvallur District Judge to conduct an enquiry. Following interference by the duo, the case was transferred to the Sessions Court in Chennai, Subbu said, and added that since then he had been receiving threats of severe consequences. TN Advocates Association president S Prabakaran contended that the condition of the body of Sathish Kumar showed that he had been brutally tortured for two days.