1984 riots: Witness alleges bias during lie-detection test

NEW DELHI: Controversial arms dealer Abhishek Verma, a witness in a 1984 anti-Sikh riots case, on Friday moved a city court accusing a forensic lab of defending Congress leader Jagdish Tytler during his lie-detector test.

The case pertains to the riots at Gurdwara Pulbangash in North Delhi where three people were killed on November 1, 1984, a day after the assassination of then prime minister Indira Gandhi.

Verma, who has been undergoing the polygraph test at the government-run Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) in Rohini here, alleged in his application before a Karkardooma court that officials of the FSL were holding a “mini trial” and acting in an “unfair and biased” manner. “Senior Scientific Officer... was acting in a very biased manner and trying to defend the accused person of the present case, which is a matter of concern,” Verma alleged in his application.

He claimed that two officers, in separate rounds of questioning and after asking all lawyers to leave the room on October 24, put personal questions such as “Why do people like you marry twice? Why are you after Tytler? I am not able to understand.”

“The FSL, Rohini, is not conducting the procedure for the lie detection test in a fair and impartial manner, rather the conduct and actions of FSL, Rohini, are extremely questionable,” the plea alleged. Verma has sought that a detailed standard operating procedure for conducting polygraph test be filed by the FSL, Rohini, in the court to bring on record complete transparency.

While Tytler, who has been given clean chit thrice by the CBI, has refused to undergo the lie detector test, Verma had given conditional consent to undergo the test if provided with roundthe-clock security.

The court had on August 2 asked the CBI to conduct lie-detection test on Verma after the CBI’s investigating officer informed it about places where such facilities were available.