New Delhi: The Delhi police Monday moved a lower court seeking permission to conduct a polygraph test on Aaftab Amin Poonawala, the accused in the Shraddha Walker murder case. Police had earlier said Aaftab, who confessed to killing his live-in partner and chopping her body into 35 pieces, was giving misleading answers to questions.
Metropolitan magistrate Aviral Shukla of Saket Court referred the matter to Magistrate Vijayshree Rathore, who earlier granted permission for a narco analysis test on Aftab. The court is likely to hear the plea on Tuesday.
According to sources, Aaftab is to be produced before the court after the expiry of his five-day police custody. Delhi police had earlier submitted in court that Aftab was giving wrong information and misleading the investigation. The plea for polygraph test is the second scientific examination that Delhi police sought to conduct on Aaftab.
Meanwhile, the narco analysis test on Aaftab was not conducted on Monday, the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) said. "We are not conducting the narco test on Aaftab today," news agency PTI quoted FSL Assistant Director Sanjeev Gupta as saying. Punit Puri, also an assistant director at the FSL, said the polygraphic test will be conducted if consent is received. "It will be followed by medical tests and after these only the narco will be performed."
"Within 10 days, narco will be done," he added. Assistant Director Sanjeev Gupta further said they have received request for the narco test "and we have started our work as well. Our director Deepa Varma has instructed to take this case on priority."
"There was a meeting on Sunday between the FSL and the police team and everything has been decided but some parameters need to be completed before the narco test and they have been informed to the police. As soon they complete them we can do narco," he said.
Explaining the narco test, Rajneesh Gupta, the FSL crime scene in-charge, said it is a lengthy process with various disciplines such as medical practitioners involved as this is done in the operation theatre. "Experts from FSL, photo division, narco specialists are there so all teams work together and their consent is also needed to work in coordination.
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Our officers are already having meeting with all departments to take their consents and when we get it we will have a date with us which we will inform you," he said. A senior FSL official said earlier in the day an elaborate discussion was held on Sunday with the Delhi Police team probing the Shraddha Walker murder case. As Aaftab Poonawala's five-day police custody ends on Tuesday, the Delhi Police is running against time to get the test conducted.
The narco-analysis test, if and when it is done, will be conducted at Dr Baba Saheb Ambedkar Hospital here in Rohini here. In an order dated November 17, a Delhi court had directed the city police to complete the narco analysis test within five days, while making it clear that it cannot use any third-degree measure on him.
Narco analysis, also known as truth serum, involves intravenous administration of a drug (such as sodium pentothal, scopolamine and sodium amytal) that causes the person undergoing it to enter into various stages of anaesthesia. In the hypnotic stage, the person becomes less inhibited and is more likely to divulge information, which would usually not be revealed in the conscious state.
Twenty-eight-year-old Poonawala allegedly strangled his live-in partner Shraddha Walkar and sawed her body into 35 pieces which he kept in a 300-litre fridge for almost three weeks at his residence in South Delhi's Mehrauli before dumping them across the city over several days past midnight.
