The remains of IIT Kharagpur student Faizan Ahmed are still lying in a morgue as police are yet to take them back to his hometown, Dibrugarh in Assam.
Aniruddha Mitra, a lawyer representing Faizan’s family, wrote to the West Midnapore superintendent of police on June 9: “The Judge (Justice Rajasekhar Mantha of Calcutta High Court) has… directed you to arrange for the return of the remains of Faizan Ahmed, deceased, kept at the Kolkata Police Morgue, to Dibrugarh, where he is to be buried. The mother of the deceased student, who is at present in Kolkata... or the undersigned may be contacted for the purpose.”
The morgue is on CR Avenue, behind Mohammad Ali Park, in Kolkata.
Faizan’s mother Rehana Ahmed said five days have passed since the court issued the order and the lawyer wrote to the police superintendent, but the police do not seem to have taken any action.
Repeated calls and text messages to West Midnapore police superintendent Dhritiman Sarkar went unanswered.
Faizan’s remains were exhumed from a burial ground in Dibrugarh for a second post-mortem, which was conducted at the Calcutta Medical College and Hospital under the watch of a court-appointed forensic medicine science expert on May 27.
After going through the report, Justice Mantha said the death had now become the subject of “an investigation into a likely homicide or murder” and asked the police “to re-transport the body back to Dibrugarh... for the performance of final rites”.
After the first post-mortem, which was conducted at the Midnapore Medical College and Hospital, the police had said Faizan had committed suicide.
“My lawyer wrote to the police and shared my number (with the cops) so they could do what the court had ordered.... It is because of a botched probe by the police who were bent on proving that my son committed suicide that we had to approach the court, which ordered the second autopsy,” said Rehana.
“The police are not following the court order on re-transporting the remains. This is insensitive,” she said.
Biswaranjan Banerjee, an officer at Kharagpur Town police station who had investigated the case, told The Telegraph on Monday that they had conducted the probe based on the findings of the first post-mortem report.
Ranajit Chatterjee, a lawyer representing Faizan’s family, said: “When the case comes up for hearing before Justice Mantha again, we will apprise the court that the police did not take any steps for the transportation of the remains to Dibrugarh.”