Martiniere student’s death: Cops recreate scene of incident

LUCKNOW :Nearly 54 months after the death of a La Martiniere College Class 9 student Rahul Sridhar (14), the city police on Thursday reconstructed the sequence of the incident to unravel the mystery behind his mysterious fall from the main building of the college— Constantia.

Earlier, the police had twice investigated the incident and closed the case stating it as suicide.

The crime scene recreation was done on the direction of the Supreme Court following a petition by the boy’s family for a thorough investigation into the case. Rahul’s father V Sridhar and mother Anamma, who both are employed with the Sanjay Gandhi Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences in Lucknow, were also present along with a forensic team during the exercise that took around three hours on the college premises.

Rahul Sridhar had died after he fell from the third floor of the Constantia building under mysterious circumstances on April 10, 2015. While the college administration claimed it to be a suicide, Rahul’s parents had raised multiple questions over the suicide theory and alleged a conspiracy behind the incident. Rahul’s elder brother had lodged an FIR of murder, concealment of evidences, and criminal conspiracy against unknown persons at the Gautampalli police station on April 17, 2015.

While talking to media persons, senior forensic scientist AK Tiwari, who led the team, said they used two types of dum

RAHUL SRIDHAR HAD DIED AFTER HE FELL FROM THE THIRD FLOOR OF THE CONSTANTIA BUILDING UNDER MYSTERIOUS CIRCUMSTANCES ON APRIL 10, 2015

mies and tried to analyse things by pushing it in different positions from the third floor of the building. He said the dummy was made to fall at least five times to recreate the sequence.

“The dummy position after falling from the building was closest to the position of Rahul’s body after the incident when it was pushed in standing position,” said a forensic team member and added, “Our aim was to find out whether the boy himself jumped, fell accidentally or somebody pushed him from the college building”.

He said the forensic team will now study the types of injuries caused on Rahul’s body after the fatal fall. He said the team had already collected the post-mortem report from the police and was likely to submit their findings in a week’s time.

The college administration had termed it to be a case of suicide after finding the boy’s missing mobile phone lying on the rooftop of Constantia. The boy’s family had, however, alleged foul play citing no reason behind him taking the extreme step and pointed to the nature of injuries caused to him after falling from the building.

The police investigated the incident for around six months after registration of the FIR and closed the case claiming it to be suicide on October 10, 2015. A reinvestigation was done on a local court’s direction on February 1, 2016 but again the case was closed on October 5, 2016.