The Supreme Court on Thursday agreed to list a plea for urgent hearing after it was filed by the wife of Kanpur property dealer Manish Gupta, who had died at a hotel in Gorakhpur, reported The Hindu. The petitioner’s lawyer asked the court to list the case for hearing on Friday.

Gupta had died during a police raid at the hotel on September 28. A day later, his wife Meenakshi Gupta had alleged that her husband died due to an assault by the police after he objected to their actions.

In her complaint, she had named six police officers for allegedly murdering her husband.

The police had earlier claimed that Manish Gupta died after he fell and injured himself in his hotel room. However, the police subsequently registered a murder case against six of its personnel.

The police have arrested all the six accused officers in the case. On October 1, the Uttar Pradesh government had ordered a Central Bureau of Investigation inquiry into the matter.

During Thursday’s hearing, Meenakshi Gupta’s lawyer said that the central agency was yet to take over the case. “The lady is running from pillar-to-post,” the lawyer told a bench led by Chief Justice of India NV Ramana.

The lawyer said that a blood-soaked cloth was found under the bed in Manish Gupta’s hotel room and asked how the police missed such an obvious object.

The case

Manish Gupta was at the Krishna Palace Hotel in Gorakhpur on September 28 along with two other men – Harveer Singh and Pradeep Kumar – when five to seven police officers entered their room. The officers reportedly sought identity documents from them.

When Gupta asked the police why they were being disturbed late at night, they allegedly started threatening him. Singh said that he later saw Gupta, with blood all over his face, being dragged outside the room by the police personnel.

The accused police officers in the case are Station House Officer Jagat Narain Singh from Amethi, Sub-Inspectors Akshay Kumar Mishra, Rahul Dubey and Vijay Yadav, and constables Kamlesh Kumar Yadav and Prashant Kumar.