Lawyers protest against police for carrying magistrate's body

Lawyers in Kanpur today boycotted work and staged a protest against police's "insensitivity" in handling the body of a joint magistrate who was allegedly murdered by her husband.
The lawyers alleged that police carried the body of Kanpur (Rural) Joint Magistrate Pratibha Gautam in a tempo for the postmortem and it remained unattended at the postmortem house for long.
"Action should be taken against the police officials for their insensitivity in handling the body of the joint magistrate," Rewant Mishra, a senior lawyer of Kanpur Bar Association, said.
Kanpur Police SSP Shalabh Mathur has already ordered a probe into the incident.

Judicial magistrate Pratibha's body was found hanging at her official residence in Circuit House Colony in Cantt police station area, in the city, on October 9.
Initially, her Delhi-based advocate husband Manu Abhishek Rajan claimed the death to be a suicide, but her parents said they had doubts about his version and lodged an FIR against him following which he was arrested.

The post-mortem report confirmed that Pratibha, who was three months pregnant, was brutally assaulted and strangled to death.
Police said the couple's call details and WhatsApp messaged revealed that he was pressurising her to undergo abortion.
The couple were having frequent fights as Manu wanted her to undergo an abortion and she had refused, police said.

Pratibha and Manu got married in January this year against the wishes of their families.