‘How can body be cremated with belongings?’: Court slams Gurugram Police in realtor murder

A Delhi court on Saturday pulled up the Gurugram Police, asking how it cremated the body of real estate professional Yuvraj Singh Manchanda along with his belongings without following mandatory legal procedures.

“How can a body be cremated along with belongings? How can the law not be followed,” Judicial Magistrate Rahul Jain of Saket court asked the Gurugram Police in response to a submission by senior advocate Amit Prasad, who appeared for Yuvraj’s sister, that a burnt watch and kada were recovered from the cremation site.

The remarks came after the court on Thursday said the Gurugram Police had “botched up” the case and described its handling of the body as a “complete hotch potch”.

Yuvraj was allegedly killed by his former colleague and her partner in Gurgaon on September 6 and thrown into a drain.

Describing the sequence of events as a “shocking state of affairs”, the court asked, “Do you not upload details of an unidentified body on ZIPNET in cases of murder or otherwise? Isn’t that the procedure followed by Gurugram Police?”

Yuvraj’s details, including a photograph, were uploaded by the Delhi Police on ZIPNET — an interstate police database — on September 12, two days after Gurugram Police recovered an unidentified body from a drain in Badshahpur. However, the body, which later turned out to be Yuvraj’s, was cremated on September 14 without being identified.

The court was hearing an application moved earlier by Yuvraj’s sister, in which she had raised concerns over the handling of the body by Gurugram Police and alleged that vital forensic evidence and personal belongings were mishandled or destroyed during the cremation. It reserved its order on the application.

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According to PTI, questioning an officer from Gurugram’s Badshahpur police station, the judge asked why the nearest executive magistrate or sub-divisional magistrate was not informed on the second day after recovery of the unidentified body for the inquest proceedings. “Isn’t it the norm to inform the nearest executive magistrate… regarding inquest proceedings for the unidentified body? Why wasn’t it carried out,” the court said.

The judge further raised serious questions over the post-mortem process, noting that two reports appeared to contain materially different findings. While one report mentioned bullet injuries, the other attributed the cause of death to asphyxia due to antemortem drowning.

“The postmortem reports are different… How can such basic procedures be skipped,” the court asked, while also taking note that the viscera had not been preserved.

The court observed that the lapses had resulted in Manchanda’s family being deprived of the right to perform his last rites. “The complainant not only lost her brother by cremating his body, you snatched away her family’s right to dutifully carry out his last rites,” it said.

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Police have alleged that Yuvraj met Anya and Sanyam in Gurugram on September 6, when he was shot inside their car. They allegedly drove for two days with his body before dumping it in a drain on September 8.

Gurugram Police recovered the body on September 10 and, according to the sister’s plea, cremated it as an unidentified person on September 14, despite an FIR concerning Yuvraj’s disappearance having been registered at Lajpat Nagar police station on September 11.

Anya and Sanyam were arrested from Kaichi Dham in Uttarakhand on September 16.

Nirbhay Thakur is a Senior Correspondent with The Indian Express who primarily covers district courts in Delhi and has reported on the trials of many high-profile cases since 2023. Professional Background Education: Nirbhay is an economics graduate from Delhi University. Beats: His reporting spans the trial courts, and he occasionally interviews ambassadors and has a keen interest in doing data stories. Specializations: He has a specific interest in data stories related to courts. Core Strength: Nirbhay is known for tracking long-running legal sagas and providing meticulous updates on high-profile criminal trials. Recent notable articles In 2025, he has written long form articles and two investigations. Along with breaking many court stories, he has also done various exclusive stories. 1) A long form on Surender Koli, accused in the Nithari serial killings of 2006. He was acquitted after spending 2 decades in jail. was a branded man. Deemed the “cannibal" who allegedly lured children to his employer’s house in Noida, murdered them, and “ate their flesh” – his actions cited were cited as evidence of human depravity at its worst. However, the SC acquitted him finding various lapses in the investigation. The Indian Express spoke to his lawyers and traced the 2 decades journey.  2) For decades, the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) has been at the forefront of the Government’s national rankings, placed at No. 2 over the past two years alone. It has also been the crucible of campus activism, its protests often spilling into national debates, its student leaders going on to become the faces and voices of political parties of all hues and thoughts. The Indian Express looked at all court cases spanning over two decades and did an investigation. 3) Investigation on the 700 Delhi riots cases. The Indian Express found that in 17 of 93 acquittals (which amounted to 85% of the decided cases) in Delhi riots cases, courts red-flag ‘fabricated’ evidence and pulled up the police. Signature Style Nirbhay’s writing is characterized by its procedural depth. He excels at summarizing 400-page chargesheets and complex court orders into digestible news for the general public. X (Twitter): @Nirbhaya99 ... Read More

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