Death of Reingamphy HC raps police, seeks status report
Source: The Sangai Express / Aneesha Mathur / Courtesy Indian Express

New Delhi, November 30 2013 : The Delhi High Court has pulled up police for failing to conduct a proper investigation into the death of a 21-year-old woman (Reingamphy) from Manipur, whose body was found in Chirag Delhi in May.

Justice GS Sistani directed the Delhi Police Crime Branch to file a fresh status report on the investigation by January 24 .

he court took note of the medical report submitted in October and the allegation by the family of the woman that police were not investigating the case since the main suspect had political links.

On May 29 this year, the woman's landlord had called police saying she was not res-ponding to knocks on her door when her friends had gone to visit her.

Police broke open the door and found the body of the woman.

There were injury marks on the legs, scratches on eyelids and the nose had been bitten off.

There were bloodstains on the bed too.

Police initially called it a case of suicide and said the injuries were caused due to rat bites.

The case was transferred to the Crime Branch after protests by her family and student groups.

Police had claimed that she committed suicide by taking an overdose of medicines.

The family, however, alle-ged that a man had been ha- rassing the woman for several weeks.

They claimed that she had been raped and murdered, since a side door was found open.

They also alleg-ed that the suspect had politi- cal links and that police were not investigating the case properly.

"It is very clear that on ac-count of political interference or some other collateral reason, the SHO, the ACP and the DCP are striving to protect the accused persons from the beginning of this case and hence the Delhi Police cannot be relied upon to investigate this case in a sincere manner," the petition alleged.

A medical report submitted before the court in Octo- ber had ruled out poisoning or medicine overdose as the cause of death.

The viscera report submitted to the court stated, "...no poison and no drugs could be detected in the exhibits" .

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