Ghaziabad: The former SHO of Ghaziabad’s Tronica City police station, a senior sub-inspector and three civilians will be booked for murder on the direction of the chief judicial magistrate’s court for the custodial death of a 45-year-old woman in May 2018.The order came on Monday during the hearing of a petition filed by Sarita Tyagi’s 17-year-old daughter, who said she had witnessed her mother being tortured in the police lockup and cited Sarita’s autopsy and forensic reports that found severe internal injuries and ethyl alcohol in the body. Sarita died at a government hospital in Delhi on May 14, 2018, a day after she was arrested.After her death, Ghaziabad police had issued a statement saying Sarita’s health had deteriorated while being taken to Dasna jail and she had died after being rushed to hospital. Even the Ghaziabad police chief’s office stated “no injury was present at the time of medical examination” and Sarita was “not cooperating during medical examination”.CJM Ravindra Prasad Gupta observed that the presence of ethyl alcohol prima facie pointed to a crime having been committed since Sarita was in police custody for 12 hours before her death. This was enough for getting an investigation done after lodging an FIR, the CJM observed.An FIR under sections 302 (murder), 364 (kidnapping with intent to murder), 328 (causing hurt), and 120B (criminal conspiracy) will be filed against Shyamvir Singh, the Tronica City SHO at the time and now in charge of Vijay Nagar police station, SSI Jitendra Chauhan and three residents of Loni’s Nauraspur — Lalit, Rajeshwar and his son Sunny.Sarita and her husband Deepak, residents of Nauraspur, were booked for the murder of Lalit's father Brijeshwar Tyagi, who was shot by bike-borne assailants in March 2017. Deepak and five others were arrested but Sarita got a stay on her arrest from the high court till the filing of the chargesheet. The chargesheet was eventually filed on October 21, 2017. But with Sarita allegedly absconding, a Ghaziabad court issued a non-bailable warrant against her.Her family alleged she was tortured in custody but police had denied it.In her plea before the court, Sarita’s daughter said her mother was picked up from their home around 3.30pm on May 13, 2018 by SHO Singh and four others in a car that belonged to Lalit and taken to Tronica city police station. She alleged they wanted to frame Sarita in a fake case.The girl said she was not at home when her mother was taken away and rushed to the police station when she got to know. There, she saw her mother being thrashed inside the police lockup. “When she asked for water, Lalit brought a bottle from his car and forcefully made her drink the liquid inside it while others held my mother’s hands and legs. I witnessed the torture meted out to my mother and because of that, she died next morning at 3.30am at a hospital in Delhi,” she stated in her complaint.The girl’s counsel, Khalid Khan, said, “Subsequently, a medical board performed a post-mortem and in the report (on May 16) stated the deceased had fractures in her collar bone and ribs, besides suffering internal bleeding. Three months later, the viscera report (on August 29) revealed the presence of ethyl alcohol in her stomach, kidney, liver and blood.”Soon after the Sarita’s death, Ghaziabad police had issued a statement saying she was arrested from her rented accommodation and sent for a medical examination at the community health centre in Loni an hour later. The police had also claimed she was subsequently presented before a magistrate and sent to 14-day judicial custody but her health had started to deteriorate and she was rushed to hospital.

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