Shariatpur civil surgeon reads out injury details
As the Shariatpur civil surgeon yesterday read out in the High Court the fresh autopsy report citing injury marks all over Hena’s body, people in the courtroom seethed with rage, some even shouted expletives.
Only nine days back, an autopsy conducted at Shariatpur Sadar Hospital did not find any internal and external injuries on the body of the 15-year-old girl allegedly flogged to death following a fatwa.
At that time, an inquest by the local police too did not report any abnormalities.
In response to news reports, the HC on Monday ordered exhumation of Hena’s remains and a fresh autopsy. It also asked eight people, including those involved in the first autopsy, to appear before it yesterday.
Reading from the report of the second autopsy, conducted at Dhaka Medical College Hospital, Civil Surgeon Golam Sarwar said, “One bruise on left lower chest is two and a half inches long and two inches wide.”
The latest autopsy has found eight external and seven internal wounds.
“In our opinion, the death was due to haemorrhage followed by Septicaemic shock resulting from the wounds inflicted by blunt weapon. Those were ante-mortem and homicidal in nature,” Sarwar told a two-member bench of the HC.
A murmur of voices rose in the courtroom as the civil surgeon concluded. Someone shouted out, “You scoundrel. How much money did you take?”
The DMCH autopsy found four bruises on the chest, three on the back of abdomen and one in left thigh.
The external bruises were on average four inches long and two inches wide.
The internal ones were mostly four and a half inches long and three inches wide. The wounds include three in the chest, three on the back of abdomen and one in left thigh.
Asked which one of the two reports is true, Sarwar avoided a directly a reply. “This is about the experience of doctors. The DMCH doctors are more experienced than those from Shariatpur,” he said.
Instantly, the court wondered about the fate of hundreds of post-mortems done in the district in past.
“According to your statement, all the post-mortems done in the past in the district were wrong,” one judge told Sarwar.
In reply to another question on how Hena died within 34 hours of her discharge from the hospital, Sarwar claimed Hena was “completely healthy” at the time of her release.
“Then it must be a genie who has killed the girl,” the judge quipped.
At one stage of the hearing, Additional Attorney General MK Rahman brought to the court’s attention different news reports containing the civil surgeon’s statement that journalists were lying about Hena’s death.
“What you have said is completely false, and what the journalists said are completely true,” another judge observed.
Nirmal Chandra Das, the medical officer who headed the Shariatpur autopsy team, tried to raise the issue of lack of instruments for a proper autopsy. But he could not name any such tool when the court asked him.
The judge came down heavily on investigation officer of the case Sub-Inspector Aslam of Naria Police Station for bringing the issue of Hena’s “affair” with alleged rapist Mahbub in the inquest report.
“Who are you to write those? While the post-mortem at DMCH identified so many external injuries on the body, how come your inquest report mentioned nothing of those,” said the judge.
