Patel agitation: No need to monitor probe on custodial death, says Gujarat HC

Ahmedabad: The Gujarat High Court on Monday disposed of a petition filed in the case of alleged custodial death of a 32-year-old man of Patel community during the reservation stir, saying there was no need for the court to monitor the case when CID has taken over probe into it. Justice J B Pardiwala disposed of the petition filed by Prabhaben, mother of Shwetang Patel who died allegedly in custody after being caught by the police during the quota violence, while giving direction to the state Criminal Investigation Department (CID) that it should carry out a thorough investigation in the case. [caption id=“attachment_2415078” align=“alignleft” width=“380” class=" “]  Prabhaben Patel. Image courtesy: Reuters[/caption] The court said there was no need for it to monitor the investigation that was being carried out by CID. Observing that prima facie it was a case of homicide, the HC had last week directed the administration to file an FIR and also ordered a CID probe into Swetang’s death. The state today submitted before the HC that the probe has been handed over to CID and an FIR has also been registered in the case. Government pleader Mitesh Amin also informed the court that the police has recorded statements of Swetang’s mother and sister and investigation has begun. Advocate Tarak Damani, appearing for Shwetang’s mother, submitted that there were some lacunae in the FIR. The HC said that if the complainant finds any lacunae at any stage then the court can be approached in future. The court also ordered the police to hand over the postmortem reports to the complainant. Earlier, the High Court had directed the police to carry out second autopsy of the body. In her plea, Shwetang’s mother demanded setting up of a special investigation team (SIT) to investigate the death of her son. PTI