Second post-mortem was done on Saturday on the bodies of six of the persons allegedly killed in a ‘police encounter’ in the Seshachalam forests near Tirupati on April 7.
Twenty woodcutters from Tamil Nadu were killed and bodies of 12 of them were either buried or cremated. But, relatives of the remaining six persons near Padavedu in Tiruvannamalai district demanded a second post-mortem. The Hyderabad High Court accepted the plea of these six families and ordered for a second post-mortem by doctors from the Osmania University at the Government Tiruvannamalai Medical College Hospital where the bodies were preserved since April 9. A three-member team from the university led by Taqiuddin Khan and including Abhijit Subhedar and K.V. Ramanamurthi arrived in Chennai by air and reached here by car. Nine doctors from Tirupati, who did the first post-mortem, also arrived here to observe the second post-mortem.
The team entered mortuary block at 2.15 p.m. Collector A.Gnanasekaran, Superintendent of Police J.Mutharasi and Revenue Divisional Officer, Tiruvannamalai, Uma Maheswari waited outside. The team took two hours to complete the post-mortem on the first body. The entire process was over by 8.30 p.m.
The bodies were then handed over to the relatives, and the government arranged mortuary vans to transport the bodies to the villages for a burial on Saturday night.
Advocate Balu, belonging to the PMK, said that he was satisfied with the way in which the court order has been adhered to by the team and the cooperation provided by the district administration. He added that their next move would be to get compensation for the families and an order for CBI investigation.