New Delhi: Questioning the “hasty cremation” of 31-year-old real estate executive Yuvraj Singh Manchanda’s body by Gurgaon Police, a court Thursday observed that police had “botched up the investigation, having already cremated the body”.Judicial magistrate first class Rahul Jain questioned sub-inspector Chandgi Ram of Badshahpur police station while considering a fresh compliance report filed by Gurgaon Police. The court said it needed to go through the report effectively and directed Ram to remain physically present Saturday, when the matter will be taken up again.The counsel for Manchanda’s family, Amit Prasad, highlighted what he termed a disturbing sequence of events undertaken by police. He submitted that after recovering the body, police conducted a postmortem and then cremated it as “unidentified”.The counsel also pointed to the ZIPNET trail, alleging that details and photographs of the body recovered on Sept 10 were not uploaded on the portal until Sept 16, two days after its cremation. “All the while, they failed to upload the details to ZIPNET in time, causing the loss of time to the victim’s family, who couldn’t link the records until the body had already been cremated,” he added.When Jain questioned police over the decision to cremate the body, Ram remained quiet and only said police had complied with the court’s directions and filed the reply before the duty magistrate Tuesday.The court will also hear Saturday other points, including the complainant’s plea seeking complete CCTV footage of the crime scene. The counsel has stressed that preservation of the footage is time-sensitive.On Sept 20, a duty magistrate, acting under Section 94 of BNSS, had directed the Gurgaon commissioner of police to preserve and produce 12 categories of records relating to the unidentified body..
