Justice Rajasekhar Mantha of the high court on Monday ordered a forensic probe into the death of an IIT Kharagpur student, to be conducted by an expert in forensic medicine, after police submitted that the student had committed suicide.
The court engaged Ajay Kumar Gupta, formerly associated with the department of forensic and state medicine, Institute of Post Graduate Medical Education and Research, to conduct the probe after observing that there was a need to verify the post-mortem report, said lawyers connected with the case.
The court ordered all documents related to the case to be handed to Gupta.
“The post-mortem report should be verified by an expert in forensic medicine,” the judge said. The report apparently does not say clearly what caused the death of Faizan Ahmed, a third-year student of mechanical engineering.
Justice Mantha’s order said: “It is further indicated by the learned advocate general that fresh FIR No. 81 of 2023… has been registered by the Kharagpur Town Police against seven persons.”
Advocate-general S.N. Mookherjee told the court Faizan had committed suicide and that he had been depressed because of his failure to secure an internship offer.
Faizan’s decomposed body was found in a hostel room on the campus on October 14, 2022.
This was not the first submission by the police in the court that Faizan had committed suicide.
“Once they had told the court that Faizan had slashed his wrist with a blade. While taking exception to this finding, my colleague Ranjit Chatterjee asked why the blade was not found in his room,” said Aniruddha Mitra, one of the two lawyers representing Faizan’s family.
“The police also said Faizan died because of a drug overdose. But the seizure list does not mention any drug. Besides, going by the protruded eyes and tongue of Faizan, Chatterjee told the court, it seems he was smothered,” Mitra said.
Calls and text messages from this newspaper to the additional superintendent of police, Kharagpur, Rana Mukherjee, who was in the court in connection with the case, failed to elicit any response.
The IIT told the court on Monday it could not be held responsible for the student’s death. Lawyer Anindya Mitra, who is representing the IIT, told the court the institute had taken action against several students for allegedly harassing Faizan.