AIIMS row shadow on Shopian case

A forensic expert from the AIIMS in Delhi alleged on Tuesday that his colleagues —who had declared the Shopian deaths as drowning — were not professionally competent.

With this, the Shopian controversy takes a U-turn. The CBI based its report on the AIIMS experts’ autopsy report.

Earlier, local doctors, who conducted autopsies, said Asiya Jan, 17, and her sister-in-law Neelofar Jan, 23, were raped and murdered on May 29. Their bodies were recovered next day from a stream near their house.

The CBI on Monday booked 13 people — including six doctors — for destroying evidence and creating disturbances in the state by claiming that the women were raped and murdered by security personnel.

On Tuesday, Kashmir High Court Bar Association president Mian Abdul Qayoom received a letter from an AIIMS forensic department professor, Dr Sudhir K. Gupta, claiming that expert team leader Dr T.D. Dogra lacked “integrity and required qualification”.

The letter said, “Dr Dogra … once failed his MD exam and has also been rejected as faculty by AIIMS once.”

The letter, typed on Dr Gupta’s letterhead, was presented to the Chief Justice on Monday by the Majlis-e-Mashawarat, a local body that had spearheaded a 47-day-long violent agitation in Shopian after the bodies were found.

Dr Dogra, head of the AIIMS forensic department, told HT: “I have heard about the letter. This is totally unacceptable.”
The letter blackened the other experts’ images as well.

Even after admitting that Dr Dogra’s report could be correct, Dr Gupta said, “You can’t say drowning rules out murder. Someone could have killed them by drowning. Besides, the fact that Asiya’s hymen was intact doesn’t mean no rape had happened.”