Colaba occult murder: Even autopsy surgeons were moved

Shanaya Hathiramani

With the parents of Shanaya Hathiramani, 3, raising concerns over whether she was sexually assaulted by their childhood friend Anil Chugani before he flung her out of his seventh-floor window, officials decided to have forensic surgeons from JJ Hospital conduct her autopsy instead of St George Hospital.

Prem Hathiramani had in his statement to the police raised concerns about whether Shanaya was assaulted as Chugani had locked the door from inside after taking her into the bedroom. "Therefore, the police wanted a through autopsy to be done," said a source from the centre. "The police even requested the autopsy surgeons to get the entire procedure videotaped to ensure that a record is maintained and the same can be used during the trial."

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The building from which the three-year-old child was flung. Pic/Suresh Karkera

The body was brought to the postmortem centre at 2am and a panel headed by Dr M Jawale, assistant professor of forensic medicine, and Dr Rahul Wagh, resident (forensic medicine), conducted the autopsy between 3am and 5am. "Seeing the child lying on the autopsy table, even the forensic surgeons were moved," said a source from the centre. "She had blood stains around the nostrils but other than a few abrasion marks around the chest and stomach, there was no other open injuries visible during physical examination."

The surgeons found that the child had sustained multiple serious internal injuries to both sides of the chest and abdomen, and a fracture to the right thigh. Most injuries were minute and irregular, due to which they could not be counted or recorded. Besides viscera, the surgeons also collected samples to test for abuse. These will be sent to the State Forensic Science Laboratory at Kalina.

The surgeons suspect the child was thrown from a height of around 70 feet. When asked if the forensic surgeon visited the crime scene to recreate the incident, the source said, "The police are yet to request the forensic surgeon to visit the crime scene for analysis and recreation by using dummy of same weight and size to ascertain all probabilities, including the height of the deceased and the window from where she allegedly was thrown."

With circumstances and eye-witness accounts clearly indicating a homicide, the forensic surgeons have given the preliminary cause of death as 'polytrauma with multiple injuries (unnatural)' and final cause of death will be given after the FSL findings.

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