Family members and friends of Anchal Pandhi refusing to believe she died by suicide after her body was found hanging in her rented accommodation at Pacific Hill Apartment at Rajpur Road on February 14 morning, the State Director-General of Police MA Ganapathy has ordered a fresh investigation to be led by Dehradun Superintendent of Police (Rural) Shweta Choubey.
The order followed the deceased’s parents and others meeting the DGP and demanding an independent inquiry into the incident. DGP further ordered her husband Rahul Pandhi -- member of a family running a newspaper-- be subjected to a lie detector test. The lie detector test report would be matched with the statement recorded by Rahul at the police station soon after the death was reported.
This aside, as per the order of the DGP, a medical board would be constituted to re-examine the post mortem report to find out the actual cause of death also considering other items of evidence collected.
It will be recalled that after being informed by Rahul, the police had found Anchal hanging from a noose tied to the ceiling fan in their rented home. According to police sources, Rahul was in the same house on the night the incident happened. Soon after the death, the deceased’s father Anil Kohli had registered a complaint with the police station and subsequently, a case under section 302 of the Indian Penal Code had been registered against four persons, including Rahul.
Rajpur police station in-charge Pradeep Singh Rawat who is investigating the case earlier said that the postmortem report had confirmed that Anchal had died of hanging. He had further said that there was no evidence to suspect foul play involved in the death while adding that the case was being probed from several angles. Meanwhile, family members of Anchal maintain that there were injury marks on her body inflicted upon her allegedly by her husband. They also question the suicide angle, alleging that she was killed.