Second autopsy report suggests IIT- Kharagpur student was beaten, stabbed, shot
A 24-year-old student of the Indian Institute of Technology- Kharagpur was found dead in his hostel room in October 2022
Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)- Kharagpur student Faizan Ahmed, 24, who was found dead in his hostel room in October 2022, was probably hit by some heavy blunt object, stabbed and shot by the accused persons, a second autopsy report has suggested.
“The victim was hit with blunt objects on his head, stabbed and shot right below the left ear,” said Ajoy Kumar Gupta, a retired forensic expert from the West Bengal CID who was appointed by the Calcutta high court for his opinion on the likely cause of death of the third-year student.
Even though the first autopsy and police reports failed to conclude how the victim died, a second postmortem done by Gupta, on the orders of the Calcutta high court, suggested homicide.
In his preliminary findings in June 2023, Gupta stated that death was caused due to profuse bleeding causing haemorrhagic shock and combined effect infused over chest and over the victim’s head.
“There is a possibility that he was hit with a blunt object or a blunt pointed object or a pointed sharp object. It could be a dagger or some pointed object like a sharp metal rod, which had entered his body (around the head and neck region) from right to left. As an autopsy surgeon, my job is to scan the body, inch by inch,” Gupta told HT in June 2023.
In May this year Gupta submitted another report after he received the reports of the central forensic science laboratory.
“While the right temporal styloid process (a bone just below the ear) was missing from the root, the left styloid process had become black. There was blood near the mandible of the lower jaw and second cervical vertebrae. This suggests that the victim was stabbed from the right and shot with the barrel of the firearm pressed against body (below the left ear),” Gupta told HT on Thursday.
While Ahmed was found dead on October 14, 2022 the first autopsy was carried out on October 15 before handing over the body to his parents. The body was taken to Dibrugarh in Assam where it was buried. On the orders of the Calcutta high court, the body was exhumed, and the second autopsy was conducted in Kolkata in May 2023.
The final report of Gupta’s investigation is likely to be submitted before the Calcutta high court next month.
