Mumbai: Two separate police teams will investigate the murder of Manju Shette and rioting inside the Byculla jail.
According to Joint Commissioner of Police S. Saxena, the Mumbai Crime Branch, Unit 3, will investigate the murder charges against the five constables and the jail officer, while the riot case would be investigated by the Nagpada police.
The Commissioner of Police had ordered the Crime Branch to take over the case, a police officer said.
Shette, a murder convict, died at the government-run J.J. Hospital on Friday night after allegedly being beaten up by prison guards. She was allegedly thrashed, stripped and sexually assaulted.
Following her death, enraged inmates rose in protest on Saturday. Some of them climbed onto the prison terrace, while others made a bonfire of newspapers and documents inside the premises to express their anger.
The Prisons Department had suspended six jail staffers and booked them for murder. The Nagpada police booked nearly 200 inmates of the Byculla jail, including Sheena Bora murder case accused Indrani Mukerjea, who is lodged in the same prison, for rioting, unlawful assembly, assault on a public servant and other sections of the Indian Penal Code.
On Tuesday, the State Commission for Women had issued a notice to the Additional Director General, Prisons, and the Special Inspector General, Prisons, in connection with the matter.
According to officials, Shette was transferred to Byculla jail from Yerawada Central Prison in Pune around two months ago.
— With PTI inputs
