HC orders exhumation of Nargis' body

The High Court yesterday ordered the government to exhume the body of Bangladeshi citizen, Nargis Begum, who was allegedly killed after rape in India two months ago.

Moved by a writ petition, the HC asked the commissioner of Khulna Metropolitan Police and officer-in-charge of Sonadanga Police Station in the city to submit a post mortem report on the corpse of Nargis before it by June 16.

The HC also asked the foreign and home secretaries to submit documents on the handover of the body to the police station before it.

Victim's maternal aunt Rahela Begum and Bangladesh Human Rights Foundation's Chief Executive Alena Khan filed the petition on May 20.

Alena Khan told The Daily Star that they will ask local administration of Khulna to exhume the body for its post mortem after getting the written order of the HC.

Nargis, 32, her daughter and mother from Sonadanga in Khulna went to India for treatment. On March 9, the three started off for New Delhi from Kolkata by a train. When they reached a station around 3:30am the following day, some people said they had arrived in New Delhi, Nargis' mother Anowara told The Daily Star in April.

Getting off the train they left a bag behind which Nargis went back to retrieve. Criminals then kidnapped her and took her away in an auto-rickshaw, she said.

Uttar Pradesh police said they found her body near the railway line in Firozabad district of the state in the second week of March.

Quoting a post mortem report carried out in India, Uttar Pradesh police chief Pijush Sreebastab told BBC Bangla that Nargis was not raped. She was run over by a train, he claimed.

The petition said Sonadanga police received the body but did not supply any documents on the handover and the passports of the victims and her family members.

Nargis was buried in Sonadanga on April 20.