Chandigarh, The autopsy of slain anti-drug activist Parvinder Singh Jhota was conducted at the PGIMER here on Saturday and the body was handed over to the family.

Jhota’s cremation would take place at his native place in Mansa on Sunday.

“The post-mortem examination of Jhota ji has been done. The body has been handed over to the family,” action committee Gopal Sidhu told reporters here.

The body will be taken from the Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research here around 5 am on Sunday to his native place in Mansa, he said.

Nihang Raja Raj Singh, a religious leader, said that Jhota’s family has decided to hold the cremation around 12 noon on Sunday.

Jhota’s body was brought to PGIMER Chandigarh from Mansa town in the early hours of Friday, after his family ended their 22-day agitation and agreed to a post-mortem following a meeting with Punjab government representatives on Wednesday.

The body, which had been lying at the mortuary of Civil Hospital in Mansa for over three weeks, was taken in an ambulance late on Thursday night.

However, the post-mortem procedure could not be carried out on Friday as various protocols had to be followed, given that the body earlier lay in certain temperature conditions for more than 20 days in the Mansa mortuary.

Jhota was shot dead in broad daylight at a medical store in a busy marketplace in Mansa town on October 13. The store owner, who had fired at Jhota after the activist confronted him over the sale of addictive drugs to an elderly man, was subsequently arrested.

During Wednesday’s meeting with government representatives, the Joint Action Committee formed to seek justice for Jhota had sought the release of two of its arrested members, along with other demands. The arrested JAC members, including Lakhvir Singh alias Lakha Sidhana, were released from the Nabha district jail on Thursday evening.

Jhota’s family, along with the JAC, had been sitting on a protest in Mansa seeking justice for the slain activist.

After a three-week deadlock, a breakthrough came on Wednesday following a five-hour meeting between the protesters and government representatives, who included Assembly Speaker Kultar Singh Sandhwan and Agriculture Minister Gurmeet Singh Khudian.

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