Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Jan 3: Even as the police have found a key eyewitness of the Delhi’s horror hit and run case killing the 20-year old Anjali Singh and her body dragged for over 12 kilometres, the post-mortem report of her body has ruled out any sexual assault suspected by her mother since the body was found totally shun of any clothing.
The Delhi Police said Tuesday that Anjali Singh did not receive any injuries in her private parts “suggestive of sexual assault.”
Sagarpreet Hooda, Special CP (Law and order Zone II), said the post-mortem examination was conducted by a three-member board of Maulana Azad Medical College on Monday. Hooda said the report stated that the provisional cause of death was “shock and haemorrhage as a result of ante-mortem injury to the head, spine, left femur, both lower limbs”.
He added all her injuries were produced by blunt force impact that was possible with the vehicular accident and dragging. Also, the report indicates that there is no injury suggestive of sexual assault,” Hooda added. According to a doctor from the medical board at Maulana Azad Medical College who conducted the autopsy, there is an “accidental injury pattern” with “dragging injuries over her back and head and buttocks.
The report of the autopsy was submitted to the police today. For further tests, swab samples and shreds of her jeans have been preserved. Anjali Singh’s mother was among those who suspected that it may not just be a case of the car hitting her scooter and then dragging her, causing her death.
The five men who were in the car have been arrested and charged with ‘culpable homicide not amounting to murder’, rash driving and causing death by negligence. Police had already said they found no evidence of sexual assault.
The police have found a key witness — 20-year-old Anjali, who worked as an event manager, was with a friend, Nidhi, when the Maruti Baleno car hit her scooter. The friend fled the scene but Anjali’s leg got stuck in the car’s axle and dragged along, possibly without the knowledge of the occupants of the car. Nidhi suffered minor injuries and fled the spot. She told the police that she panicked. Nidhi is now a crucial eyewitness, police said.
The details of the horror incident was known when cops re-charted the route the victim had taken after leaving a hotel at 1.45 am on January 1 after attending a New Year’s party. CCTV footage showed two women leaving the hotel on a scooter, not very far from the spot of the accident in Sultanpuri area.
The men in the car have allegedly admitted that they were drunk. In panic after hitting the scooter, they sped away, unaware that a woman was being dragged along. It was after the car had covered 13 km, dragging the woman through the streets, that one of the men noticed an arm sticking out at a U-turn at Kanjhawala. They stopped, her body fell off, and they drove away in panic.
Police said Deepak Khanna who was driving the car had told the investigators that he did feel “something stuck” under the car, but others told him it was nothing. The case unraveled after police responded to calls from people who saw the body being dragged. One of those who alerted the cops had tried to alert the car-borne men, too, and followed them on a bike but he could not catch up with the car.
The five accused, sources say, have told the police that they fled the spot after the accident without realising that Anjali was dragged along. Her body was later found on the road without clothes and with a broken back and leg in Delhi’s Kanjhawala sending shock waves across the country on New Year.
They have also confessed to being drunk at the time of the crash. Official sources say they consumed more than two bottles of liquor inside the car. The accident took place at around 2 am in Delhi’s Sultanpuri on Sunday when Anjali, who worked at an event management company, was returning home from work.
While Deepak Khanna was driving, Amit Khanna, Manoj Mittal, Krishan and Mithun were sitting in the car. After driving for a few km, Deepak had realised that something was tangled in the undercarriage of the car, officials said, adding that when he asked the other four men to check, they asked him to drive away.
The car was stopped in Kanjhawala’s Jonti village after Mithun, who was sitting in the front next to Deepak, saw Anjali’s hand while taking a U-turn. After her body came off, the men, instead of getting down and helping her drove away abandoning Anjali.
The accused then returned the car, a Maruti Baleno which was twice borrowed, to Ashutosh who had loaned it to them. When police traced the owner of the car, Lokesh, he told them he had loaned it to Ashutosh, who loaned it to his friends Amit and Deepak.
The men were arrested on Sunday night. They have been charged of culpable homicide not amounting to murder, causing death by negligence and criminal conspiracy.
Home Minister Amit Shah, amid massive protests by locals, has directed Delhi Police Commissioner Sanjay Arora to conduct a thorough inquiry in the case. Anjali Singh lived with her mother and younger siblings in Aman Vihar in Northwest Delhi. Her father died some years ago.
