Poonawala’s narco test likely on Dec 1, says FSL
Aaftab Poonawala, accused of murdering his girlfriend Shraddha Walkar and chopping her body into at least 35 pieces, underwent his final polygraph test session on Tuesday, said Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) officials aware of the matter, adding that he is likely to undergo narco analysis on Thursday.
Poonawala, 28, is accused of killing Walkar, 27, at their flat in south Delhi’s Chhattarpur Pahadi on May 18, chopping her body, storing the parts in a refrigerator, and then dumping the body parts in forested areas in and around the Capital. He was arrested for Walkar’s murder on November 12, and over the past week, police have been taking him to the FSL office for polygraph tests to help them recover Walkar’s body parts and tie up disparate ends of the case.
On Tuesday, Poonawala underwent a four-hour polygraph session at the FSL office amid tight security, a day after some armed men belonging to a fringe right-wing group waylaid a police van ferrying Poonawala and attempted to attack him. Apart from the local police, Border Security Force personnel also formed the security cordon outside the lab.
“Poonawala was brought to the FSL at around 10am from Tihar jail by a police team. Apart from the final polygraph session, we also carried out the prenarco
session on him. The polygraph test is complete. We will now go for the narco test that will be carried out at Baba Saheb Ambedkar hospital in Rohini by a panel of experts,” said FSL assistant director Sanjeev Kumar Gupta.
“In all probability it will be conducted on December 1,” Gupta said. “If things do not go as planned due to unforeseen reasons, we will get it done on December 5. Police have secured the court’s permission to bring Poonawala to the lab from jail on December 1 and 5.”
Another FSL official said that a polygraph test is usually done before the narco analysis
“For two-three days, Poonawala was down with fever, and he sneezed and coughed during the polygraph test, affecting its parameters. The polygraph test was extended for that reason, and because police wanted to get more information from him,” the official said, on condition of anonymity.
To be sure, results of narco or
polygraph tests are not admissible as primary evidence in courts, except under certain circumstance where the bench thinks the facts and nature of the case permit it.
Investigation continues
Delhi Police officers associated with the probe into Walkar’s murder said the forensic reports of at least 13 decomposed bones, a jaw, some weapons and clothes that members of the special investigation team (SIT) formed to probe the case have recovered from forests in Chhattarpur and Gurugram and Poonawala’s flat are still awaited.
Investigators said that apart from collecting forensic evidence and recording the statements of nearly 25 people known to the couple, they were also collecting Poonawala’s digital footprints as evidence against him. The digital evidence includes his internet search history, online payments made by him and his chats on social networking sites.