[ad_1]
A city court on Thursday allowed Delhi Police to test a narco analysis of Mehrauli murder accused Aftab Amin Poonawala and remand him for five more days of custodial interrogation.
Delhi Police sought 28-year-old Poonawalla’s narco test, which was practically produced, with case investigators saying it was necessary since he was changing his statement and not cooperating with the probe into the brutal murder of his live-in partner Shraddha Walker.
Metropolitan Magistrate Vijayashree Rathore allowed the police to conduct the narco test, also known as truth serum test, after observing that the accused had given his consent for it, said Poonawalla’s advocate Avinash Kumar. The police made the application after arresting him on November 12.
Poonawalla strangled 27-year-old Walker to death on May 18 and cut his body into 35 pieces, which he kept in a 300-litre fridge at his residence in south Delhi’s Mehrauli for nearly three weeks and dumped across the city in the middle of the night for several days. According to the police, the saw was bought from a shop on the Mehrauli-Gurgaon road.
Investigators are likely to take help from other police districts in Delhi and take Poonawalla to places like Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand to establish the sequence of events that led to Walker’s murder, police sources said.
After leaving Mumbai, Walker and Poonawalla traveled to several places and the police will visit these places along with the accused to see if anything happened during those trips to trigger the murder, sources said.
Police also traced the garbage van where Poonawala had dumped his blood-stained clothes and recovered Rs 300 worth of water bills and some food bills, they said.
Metropolitan Magistrate Aviral Shukla ordered Poonawala’s remand after appearing through video conference, considering the threat perception of the accused due to the overcrowded atmosphere in the Saket court premises, which also saw protests from a section of lawyers.
Around 100 lawyers gathered in the court premises and raised slogans against Poonawalla and demanded his death sentence.
Before Poonawalla’s five-day custodial interrogation period ended, the Delhi Police made a plea before the judge in a packed courtroom, virtually seeking his presence due to the possibility of an attack on the accused by “some religious outfits and miscreants”. .
“I am aware of the sensitivity, media coverage and public attraction of the matter,” the judge said while granting the police plea.
A further police custody hearing was held without the presence of the media. After the case, court sources said, the accused was sent to police custody for another five days. The police sought a 10-day custodial interrogation.
Saket Bar Association (SBA) and Bar Council of Delhi (BCD) have condemned the lawyers’ protest.
Lawyer Surendra Kumar said the protest was organized against the heinous crime of the accused.
“We demand a fair investigation into this incident. It should be decided quickly in a fast track court,” he said.
While the SBA sought to distance itself from the protests, the BCD said the law should take its course.
Narco testing involves the intravenous administration of a drug (such as sodium pentothal, scopolamine, and sodium amytal) that allows the subject to enter various stages of anesthesia. It has been used to solve important cases in the past.
Investigative agencies use this test when other evidence does not provide a clear picture of the case.
However, statements made during a narco test are not admissible in court except in certain circumstances when the court feels that the facts and nature of the case permit it.
In a harrowing tale of betrayal and disloyalty, the accused, a trained chef, evaded detection for six months, living in the house they shared and was only arrested on November 12 after details of the murder and its dire consequences emerged. His interrogation
According to sources involved in the investigation, the police are in touch with other police districts to share information about decomposing body parts recovered in their areas in the last six months.
“We will talk to hotel owners and staff where the couple stayed in Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand and identify their poonawalla. We will take him to the Mehrauli forest area to determine the routes he took while dumping the dismembered body parts,” sources said.
Sources also claimed that Poonawala misled the investigators about the route he took.
“We have recovered body parts from four places in the forest area. He used a saw to cut the body parts, which he allegedly bought from a shop on the Mehrauli-Gurgaon road. We will take him to the shop so that the shopkeeper can identify him,” sources said.
Blood samples from Walker’s father have been collected for DNA analysis on 13 body parts recovered so far, sources said.
(This story was not edited by Devdiscourse staff and was generated automatically from a syndicated feed.)
[ad_2]
Source link