A Delhi court on Thursday criticised Gurugram Police over its handling of the murder case of 31-year-old Delhi-based real estate professional Yuvraj Singh Manchanda.
The court said the investigation was “botched” after the victim’s body was cremated without being identified.
“You have botched up the investigation having already cremated the body,” Judicial Magistrate First Class Rahul Jain said while hearing a compliance report filed by Gurugram Police.
Manchanda’s sister’s lawyer, senior advocate Amit Prasad, told the court that the post-mortem report given by Gurugram Police listed the cause of death as “asphyxia following ante mortem drowning”.
However, a Delhi Police investigation report stated that Manchanda was allegedly shot before his body was dumped in a drain. According to the Delhi Police report, the accused allegedly told investigators that they shot Manchanda twice near his neck. They then allegedly took his body to a drain near their house in Gurugram and dumped it there to hide the evidence.
The court was also informed that Gurugram Police did not upload details of the unidentified body on ZIPNET, a police database used to share information about crime and unidentified persons, within the required time.
Gurugram Police recovered an unidentified body from a drain in Badshahpur on September 9. Delhi Police uploaded Manchanda’s photograph and other details on ZIPNET on September 11 after registering an FIR.
However, Gurugram Police uploaded details about the recovered body only on September 16. By then, the body had already been cremated without identification on September 14. The body was later identified as Manchanda.
Manchanda’s sister approached the court, raising concerns over the handling of the body. She also alleged that forensic evidence and the victim’s belongings could have been lost or affected during the process.
She has sought records related to the recovery and identification of the body, post-mortem, DNA and biological samples, forensic evidence, photographs, videos and the cremation.
She has also sought details of items recovered from the body, their chain of custody, ZIPNET records and communication between police officials and the family. According to police, Manchanda was allegedly shot inside a car in Gurugram after meeting his former colleague Anya Vats and her partner Sanyam Sachdeva.
Police allege that the accused kept his body inside the car for two days before dumping it in the Badshahpur drain on September 8. The body was recovered the following day. Vats and Sachdeva, who had worked with Manchanda until 2022, are the main accused in the case. Police said the two allegedly fled to Vrindavan after the murder and later travelled to Kainchi Dham in Uttarakhand, where they were arrested.