Aaftab sent to police custody for five days, to face narco test
NEW DELHI: A Delhi court on Thursday allowed police to conduct a narco analysis of Aaftab Amin Poonawala, who is accused of murdering his girlfriend and hacking her body into multiple pieces, and extended his police custody by five days.
Metropolitan magistrate Vijayshree Rathore granted Delhi Police permission for conducting narco analysis on an application moved by the police on November 12. Poonawala gave his consent on Thursday for the exercise.
To be sure, the Supreme Court in 2010 (Selvi & Ors vs State of Karnataka & Anr) had imposed restrictions on the conduct of narco test and held them illegal, ruling that that no lie detector tests should be administered “except on the basis of consent of the accused”.
Though narco analysis generally does have legal validity, the court may grant limited admissibility after considering the circumstances under which the test was obtained.
In a separate hearing, metropolitan magistrate Aviral Shukla extended Poonawala’s police custody by five days after police said that they needed more time to corroborate Poonawala’s claims of having bought a weapon from a shop in Gurugram, tracing his partner’s body parts, and taking him to holiday spots the couple had allegedly visited before moving to Delhi in May.
Poonawala, 28, is accused of murdering his partner Shraddha Walkar, 27, on May 18 at their rented accommodation in south Delhi’s Chhattarpur Pahadi area, dismembering her body, and dumping the body parts at forested areas across the Capital over a period of three months. The couple was originally from Vasai in Maharashtra and after a vacation in Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, moved to the Capital just days before the murder. Police plan to take him to the spots the couple allegedly visited in the next five days.
On Thursday, Poonawala was not represented by a lawyer but legal aid counsel Abinash Kumar, who appeared for him, confirmed that the court sent the accused to five days in custody after the police sought a 10-day remand.
Detailed orders of both the judges were not available at the time of going to print.
The hearings in the case were held virtually, with metropolitan magistrate Shukla allowing a police’s application seeking permission to produce Poonawala through video conferencing, agreeing to the police’s submission that the matter is sensitive as religious sentiments of the people are attached to it.
Noting the threat perception against Poonawala, the judge said that the matter had already gained a lot of traction and media attention, and hence, the proceedings were conducted by video conferencing.
“I am aware of the sensitivity of the case. I have seen that the matter has attracted a lot of traction and public attention. So, I am allowing the application for video conferencing,” the judge said.
Court room number 3 of Saket court complex was packed with lawyers and reporters. While arguments were on, scores of lawyers outside the courtroom started sloganeering, seeking the death penalty for Poonawala.
Poonawala will now be produced on November 22 at the end of his custodial interrogation.
Police told the court that Poonawala disclosed that the weapon he allegedly used to dismember Walkar’s body was bought at a shop on MG Road, and not from a store in Chhattarpur as he had previously claimed. Lawyers who attended the hearing said that the police sought to extend his custody on the grounds that they have to identify the shop in Gurugram and take Poonawala there to corroborate his revelations with the shopkeeper.
Police also told the court that Poonawala was misleading the police during their search for Walkar’s remains, adding that they would require further custody to search the forested areas of Delhi.
A third reason given by the police for wanting to extend Poonawala’s custody was that they want to take the accused to Parvati Valley in Himachal Pradesh and to Uttarakhand in order to reveal the truth.
Earlier, Poonawala had ostensibly told the police that he purchased the weapon used to dismember Walkar’s body from a kitchenware store in Chhattarpur around 500 metres from his rented flat.
To authenticate his claim, he took a police team to the store and claimed that the father of shop owner was present on May 19, when he purchased the weapon for ₹150.
However, the shopkeeper has maintained that he only sells kitchen knives and not saws or meat cleavers – heavier weapons that could ostensibly be used to dismember a body.