Nearly 17 months after the body of an 85-year old Iranian woman was found in the lift pit of an Imamwada building, the Bombay high court put to rest allegations from her community members that she was killed.
Nearly 17 months after the body of an 85-year old Iranian woman was found in the lift pit of an Imamwada building, the Bombay high court put to rest allegations from her community members that she was killed.
On Monday, relying on investigations by the state Crime Investigation Department (CID), the court said that there was no motive for murdering Fatima Fallal whose body was found slumped in the pit of a dysfunctional lift of an Iranian trust building on August 22, 2009.
But the division bench of justice AM Khanwilkar and justice AP Bangale has asked the police to file a case of death due to negligence against the trustees for leaving the door of the nonfunctional lift open.
Fallal, a destitute, had been living in the building owned by Anjuman-e-Fotowwate Isna Asheri Irani Yazdian trust after her husband’s death 10 years ago. Her two children - a daughter and a son - live in Iran.
A cleric who lived on the building’s 5th floor had found Fallal in the lift pit in the evening. Community members took her to a private hospital where doctors declared her dead.
The body was buried at Mazgaon’s Rehmatabad cemetery the next day. The same day, a member of the Iranian community, Jalal Sekkehzadeh, who claimed to be Fallal’s caretaker filed an FIR with the police saying that the haste with which the body was buried created suspicions about the death.
Apparently, though doctors at the private clinic had asked the people accompanying Fallal’s body to take it to Sir JJ Hospital for a post-mortem, the body was buried without an investigation.
There was only a death certificate from a homoeopathic doctor who said the woman had died of a cardiac arrest.
There were also allegations of injury marks on the body that could not have happened due to the fall. Questions were raised how an octogenarian woman did not have any bone fractures despite falling into a 3-ft pit. Sekkehzadeh filed a petition in the high court asking the court to o
rder the police to investigate the case. On May 16, 2010, the court ordered the state CID to investigate if Fallal was murdered. The next day, the body was exhumed from the grave for a post-mortem at JJ Hospital.
Forensic experts said there were no signs of injury or assault on the body.
Public prosecutor in the case AS Gadkari said, “The court did not find it to be a murder under section 302 but has asked the police to file a charge sheet under section 304a for causing death due to negligence against the trustees.”
Sekkehzadeh said he would appeal against the court’s order. “I will ask for a CBI investigation,” he said.
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