Poonawala to be quizzed in police custody for five days
NEW DELHI: A Delhi court on Thursday permitted the city police to question Mehrauli killing accused Aaftab Amin Poonawala for five more days in its custody and also allowed his narco analysis test to be conducted to unravel the case.
Metropolitan Magistrate Aviral Shukla passed the order while allowing police plea in the matter.
According to the investigators, the narco test is necessary since Poonawala is changing his statements and not cooperating in the probe. Blood samples of Walkar’s father were also collected for DNA analysis of the 13 body parts recovered so far.
The test involves the intravenous administration of a drug (such as sodium pentothal, scopolamine and sodium amytal) that causes the person undergobefore ing 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.
A section of lawyers on Thursday evening created ruckus at a court in Delhi against Poonawala. Around 100 advocates, practising at Saket district courts here, assembled around 3 pm when they came to know that the accused will be produced magistrate Shukla.
They shouted slogans demanding award of death penalty for Poonawala, who is under police custody.
One of the protesting lawyers, Surendra Kumar, said the protest was organised against the heinous crime of the accused.
“We demand fair investigation in the matter. It should be decided expeditiously in a fast track court,” he said.
Earlier during the day, the metropolitan magistrate permitted Delhi Police to produce the accused before him through video conferencing.
Twenty-eight-year-old Poonawala allegedly strangled Shradha 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.