The Jharkhand High Court on Friday directed the state government to inform at which hospital the DNA samples of the parents of an 18-year-old Bokaro girl, whose skeleton was recovered by police last month, will be collected.
A division bench of Justices Sujit Narayan Prasad and Sanjay Prasad issued the direction while hearing a habeas corpus petition filed by the mother of the victim. The court was informed that the Military Hospital in Namkum, Ranchi, is not equipped to collect DNA samples for further analysis.
The Union government counsel informed the court that DNA samples can be collected at the Military Hospital in Ramgarh, CCL Hospital and Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) in Ranchi, as well as hospitals in Kolkata. The case will be heard again on Monday.
Earlier, the high court had directed that samples of the parents be collected at the Military Hospital in Namkum. Bokaro police had recovered a female skeleton from a jungle last month, claiming it to be that of the girl who went missing in July last year. The parents denied that the skeleton was their daughter's.
Subsequently, the court directed the government to collect DNA samples of the parents to be matched with the skeleton. The court ordered that the DNA samples should be matched at the forensic laboratory in Kolkata. Additionally, the court directed the government to conduct a post-mortem examination of the skeleton at RIMS.
Rekha Devi, the mother of the girl, filed the petition before the High Court earlier this year after police failed to trace her daughter, who went missing on July 31 last year. The court had earlier reprimanded the Director General of Police, Bokaro Superintendent of Police, and officers of Pindrajora police station for alleged laxity in the investigation.
