SRINAGAR: The Supreme Court has directed the Jammu and Kashmir administration to transfer a Dutch national, accused of killing Sarah Elizabeth, a 25-year-old British woman, to the Institute of Human Behaviour and Allied Sciences, New Delhi, for specialised care.
Richard De Wit, 53 has been in the central jail in Srinagar since his arrest in 2013 after he murdered Sarah in a houseboat in Srinagar’s Dal Lake almost a decade back.
A patient of paranoid schizophrenia, Richard’s Advocate Rohan Garg had stated that the medical condition of the accused has been deteriorating in the Srinagar jail and needs immediate medical intervention.
The order came last week after Rohan Grag on behalf of the petitioner told a bench led by Justice V Ramasubramanian that no medical treatment for the disease was available in the Srinagar central jail and that the petitioner be shifted to the Institute of Human Behaviour and Allied Sciences, New Delhi, for specialised care.
The Bench ordered, “Shifting of the accused is on a condition that after the psychological condition of the petitioner/detenue improves, he shall be shifted to the Central Prison, Srinagar.”
“It is made clear that the period during which he receives treatment at the special care centre, will be part of the custody and hence, he will not be permitted to go out freely. The mother (Mrs Eleanor Catharina de Boer – de Wit) of the petitioner/detenue is permitted to visit him at the specialised care centre,” it ordered on May 15.
The counsel for the J&K administration submitted that the petitioner can be shifted to any place on the condition that he returned after his condition improves.
