Lucknow, July 12 (IANS) Three government doctors were Tuesday charged with destroying evidence through manipulating the autopsy report in the rape and strangulation of a 14-year-old girl inside a police station's boundary in Uttar Pradesh's Lakhimpur-Kheri district.


Lakhimpur-Kheri's Chief Judicial Magistrate R.K. Shukla directed the local police to book each of the three doctors who carried out the autopsy on the girl, found dead June 10, and termed "suicide" as the cause of death. The three were posted at the district hospital

Earlier an application was moved by local lawyer Dharmendra Suryavanshi, seeking criminal action against the three doctors - A.K Agrawal, A.K.Sharma and S.P.Singh - for destroying vital evidence.

It was only following much media criticism and the family's demand that a second autopsy was carried out by another team of five doctors who were rushed from Lucknow. They confirmed it as a case of "strangulation".

Eleven policemen posted at the Nighasan police station and three doctors who conducted the first autopsy were suspended.

Subsequently, the case was handed over to the Crime Branch of the Crime Investigation Department (CB-CID), which unearthed the involvement of yet another policeman, who was posted as the gunner of the local deputy superintendent of police.

Lakhimpur-Kheri is about 170 km from Lucknow.