Outgoing Nawada SP Gandheshwar Prasad Sinha. Telegraph picture

Patna, Feb. 12: The report of a three-member medical team, constituted by the Nawada district magistrate to ascertain the cause of death of undertrial prisoner Babloo Mishra in the district jail on Thursday, has confirmed that Mishra was killed by jail inmates.

Outgoing Nawada superintendent of police Gandheshwar Prasad Sinha said that instruction had been issued to the station house officer of the concerned police station to convert the case of unnatural death (UD) into a murder case, after the medical team submitted the autopsy report.

Sinha, who has now been promoted in the rank of DIG, said that a three-member team comprising Dr Bimal Kumar, Dr. Praveen Kumar Sinha and Dr. S.D. Aiyyar, was assigned the task to make the postmortem examination of the prisoner’s body and submit a detailed report.

The postmortem was conducted under the supervision of a magistrate.

Mishra’s relatives had earlier alleged that he died after some hardened criminals lodged in the jail assaulted him for failing to provide liquor to them.

Mishra was caught by Mufassil police with illicit liquor worth Rs 3 lakh on Tuesday.

“The autopsy report has clearly mentioned that the victim’s bones were fractured and the liver was ruptured owing to the assault. Besides, there were injury marks around his neck and head,” Sinha said, quoting the autopsy report.

The SP did not rule out the possibility of the involvement of liquor mafia in the murder of Mishra. According to the SP, preliminary investigation suggest that Mishra was first thrashed by some convicts in jail ward number 4. When he started bleeding profusely, he was admitted to the hospital on the jail premises.

The attackers later visited the jail hospital and beat up an already bleeding Mishra. The second assault led to his death, the SP said. As soon as the news of Mishra’s death, a driver by profession, reached his native village, a number of his relatives and other villagers thronged the jail premises and started pelting stones on the security personnel.

They were demanding Rs 5 lakh as compensation and a government job to a family member.

The situation was brought under control after district magistrate A.N. Safina reached the spot and provided Rs 5000 for Mishra’s funeral and assured to sympathetically consider their demand for compensation and a government job to a member of the family.

An investigating officer said that Mishra was mercilessly beaten up by inmates after he failed to provide liquor to three convicts, Navin Singh, Narsingh and Mukesh Singh, who serving life term in the jail.

The police said Navin alias Bipin Singh allegedly connived with the jail security personnel and beat up Mishra before strangulating him with a rope. When the badly bruised body was sighted by other inmates, they raised protests and shouted slogans against the jail authorities, the investigating officer said.

Sensing that the situation may go out of control, the security personnel used force to make the protesting inmates return to their wards.

“We are trying to ascertain the link of the attackers with the liquor mafia operating on Bihar-Jharkhand border,” the officer said. Mishra was a resident of Sohsarai in neighbouring Nalanda district, the police said. He was arrested from Gordhowa village on NH-31 while going to Biharsarif from Koderma in Jharkhand to deliver the consignment.

The liquor mafia, perhaps fearing that the driver may give away their names, hatched a conspiracy to get him eliminated in judicial custody to save their skin, a senior police officer said.

Nawada jailor Ram Kishun Yadav and three jail inmates have been made named accused in the FIR. The jailor has been charged with security lapses.