New Delhi: A witness in the December 16 gangrape case on Wednesday denied before a special court the claim of an accused that the death certificate and other relevant documents accompanying the victim's body, which was flown in from Singapore, were manipulated. "I (prosecution witness) had seen the original passport of the victim. I had not seen the dates on the passport. I can not comment on the contents of the document," an Air India official said while deposing as a prosecution witness.
Deposing about various documents that were handled by him, he said "I cannot comment upon the contents of the documents prepared at Singapore. The documents .... are of Singapore and whereas the other documents were prepared in India after the flight landed."
The AI official is posted at the IGI cargo terminal and the coffin carrying the breaveheart's body was unloaded in his presence on December 29, 2012. He was being cross-examined by accused Mukesh, Akshay Singh and Pawan Gupta's counsel who claimed in the court of Additional Sessions Judge Yogesh Khanna that the death certificate was not issued by the medical practitioner.
The counsel claimed the certificate is not called a death certificate, instead it's a certificate of registration of death. They also said it does not contain date under the signature of the official.
To this, the witness said "I had seen the death certificate of the victim at the time of receiving and handing over the dead body." The witness told the court that it was wrong to suggest that he had not checked the documents before handing over the coffin to the consignee, the father of the victim.
The Special court, which concluded the recording of the statement of the 65 prosecution witness till date, has called three more persons to depose in the case on Thursday. During the proceedings, the accused have requested the court to allow them to meet their parents in court lock up, which was upheld.
The judge, however, cautioned accused Vinay Sharma that he received information for Tihar jail authorities that on an earlier occasion when his parents had gone to meet him in jail, he used bad language against the official and even threw some object on the inmates, so it should not be repeated again. The judge also said that due to such behaviour, his meeting was stopped for the last 15 days.
"The said period is going to get over on April 6. Anyway he can meet his family members after April 6 in Tihar also," the judge said. Initially, five accused in the case were facing trial for allegedly gangraping and assaulting a 23-year-old girl in a moving bus on the night of December 16, 2012.
With the proceedings against the main accused Ram Singh having abated after his death on March 11, the remaining four adults accused Mukesh, Vinay, Akshay and Pawan are facing trial in the case for rape and murder of the girl. The sixth accused in the case is a juvenile who is facing proceedings before the Juvenile Justice Board in New Delhi.
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