Judge Loya death: Top forensic expert rules out heart attack as cause for demise

Dr RK Sharma went through the documents, accessed through an RTI, and said there was possible trauma to the brain and poisoning.

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A top forensic expert in the country has dismissed the official claim that Special CBI Judge BH Loya died of a heart attack, Atul Dev of The Caravan reported.

Speaking to the publication after examining medical documents relating to Loya's death, Dr RK Sharma, former head of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology Department, AIIMS, and president of Indian Association of Medico-Legal Experts, also stated that the documents show signs of possible trauma to the brain, and that there is also a possibility of poisoning.

The Caravan obtained some of the documents through Right to Information applications, whereas others, which rule out suspicions regarding Loya's death, were submitted to the Supreme Court by the Maharashtra government.

"There is no evidence of myocardial infarction in the histopathology report. The findings in this report have no suggestion of a heart-attack. They show changes, but not a heart attack," Sharma said.

According to the post-mortem report, the probable cause of death was "coronary artery insufficiency". Countering it, Sharma said, "There are changes observed in heart in these documents, but none of them are conclusive enough to show 'Coronary Artery Insufficiency'. Every patient who goes for a bypass surgery will have these symptoms."

Sharma said that the documents also suggest that Loya could have suffered trauma to the brain. "More importantly, dura is congested according to the post-mortem report. Dura mater is the outermost layer that surrounds our brain. It is damaged in cases of trauma, which indicates some kind of an assault on the brain. A physical assault," he said.

Some of the members of Loya's family, including his father and two of his sisters, had earlier told the publication that they remember seeing bloodstains at the back of his shirt when saw his body.

However, the reason for why dura was congested was not written in the report, something that Sharma said he found strange. "There is a possibility of poisoning. Every single organ is congested," he said.

Sharma also said an investigation should be carried out into the matter. "The situation presented in these documents necessitates an investigation."

The Caravan report also points out several contradictions in the medical documents pertaining to Loya's death. Read the full report here.

It was in November last year that The Caravan published an investigative report pointing out several explosive details and raising unanswered questions pertaining to the death of judge Brijgopal Harkishan Loya in a suspicious manner in Nagpur in 2014.

Loya was at the time hearing a high-profile case relating to the alleged staged encounter of Sohrabuddin Sheikh in 2005. BJP national president Amit Shah, who was then the Gujarat Home Minister, was the prime accused in the case.

Less than a month after Loya's death, a CBI court discharged Shah from the case observing that the charges were politically motivated.

However, in January this year Loya's 21-year-old son Anuj at a press conference said that his family has no suspicions about his father’s death.

While several wondered if the statement had been made under duress, others were quick to point fingers saying that the death had been unnecessarily politicised.