Court upset as police blame rats for destroyed evidence in homicide case

A court in central India was left upset after police declared that rats had destroyed evidence in a culpable homicide case.

Police in Indore city told the Madhya Pradesh High Court that 29 pieces of evidence, including plastic bottles containing viscera, had been destroyed by rodents during the rainy season, The Indian Express reported on Friday.

“Histopathological reports could not be obtained” as a result, the city’s deputy commissioner of police informed the court.

The court was hearing a bail application by a man named Ansar Ahmad who is accused of beating his wife with a stick in August 2021 and injuring her in the head, hand and spine.

The woman died during treatment and police filed a case of culpable homicide and of voluntarily causing hurt against Mr Ahmad.

After learning about the destruction of evidence on 4 October, the court observed that it highlighted the “pathetic condition in which material collected during investigation is kept in police stations”. Even so, the court added, the police’s explanation “by no stretch of imagination can be said to be satisfactory”.

“Police officers concerned should have taken into account all relevant factors to protect and safeguard the material seized during an investigation, and although nothing can be done about this spilt milk, at least this incident has also brought into the light the pathetic condition in which the material collected during investigation is kept in the police stations of the state,” judge Subodh Abhyankar said, according to the report.

“It is anybody’s guess as to what the situation in the police stations at small places would be, when in the present case, the police station was one of the most busy police stations of Indore city.”

The court asked the Madhya Pradesh’s police chief to take stock of all police station storehouses to avoid such incidents in the future.

Police said they had moved evidentiary material out of the storehouse and taken “extra precaution to sanitise and seal the room”.