Byculla Jail murder: 60 inmates say they saw six hit Manjula Shetye

Manjula Shetye

As over 60 inmates have confirmed in their statement to the crime branch that they saw the six arrested personnel of Byculla prison brutally assaulting Manjula Shetye, ultimately leading to her death, trouble seems to be mounting for them.

Also read - Byculla Jail Riot: Did DIG Swati Sathe support illegal acts in prison?

Recording statements
To build a watertight case against arrested accused jailor Manish Pokharkar, and guards Bindu Naikodi, Waseema Shaikh, Sheetal Shegaonkar, Surekha Gulve and Aarti Shingane, in the alleged June 23 custodial murder, crime branch officials recently started recording statements of all the 292 inmates to ascertain their culpability.

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Investigators are trying to wind up recording the statements of the inmates before the 14-day police custody of the accused is over, so they have roped in more officers to expedite the task. Sources close to the investigation confirmed that as of now, statements of over 60 inmates have been recorded, and all of them claimed that Shetye was killed after the six accused jail officials assaulted her. Another Crime Branch source said that the CCTV footage shows Manjula being pushed by a female constable.

Also read - Byculla Jail Riot: Top cop booted out from the custodial death probe

Indrani was framed?
Meanwhile, crime branch sources privy to the probe into the riots that followed the death, said that forensic examining of CCTV footage of Byculla jail has not yet shown Indrani to be involved in rioting, as she has not been spotted in the scanned footage so far. The CCTV footage had been sent to Forensic Science Laboratory at Kalina for analysis and a report was submitted to crime branch on July 5.