Shraddha Walkar Murder Case: Aaftab Poonawala is accused of strangling his live-in partner.
Aaftab Poonawala has allegedly admitted to having killed his girlfriend, Shraddha Walkar, in his polygraph test. Sources in the probe team said he expressed no remorse for it. Such a confession in a polygraph test, or in the narco-analysis test that follows, is not routinely admissible as evidence, but any material proofs that it may lead to can be used in court.
His narco-analysis test — next step in what's generally known as a lie-detection procedure — is on December 1. A local court on Tuesday allowed Delhi Police to conduct the narco test, giving it permission to take him to a lab in Delhi's Rohini on December 1 and 5.
That test involves intravenous administration of a drug or 'truth serum' — such as sodium pentothal, scopolamine, and sodium amytal — that causes the person to enter various stages of anaesthesia. In that hypnotic state, the person becomes less inhibited and is more likely to divulge information.
Investigating agencies use it when other evidence does not build a clear-cut case. For instance, in this case, the murder was committed in May and the body parts found earlier this month are yet to be confirmed as hers; DNA test reports are awaited.
Police got permission from the court, as well as accused Aaftab's mandatory consent, for the narco test after they found his responses to be deceptive or inconclusive.
Aaftab Poonawala is accused of strangling his live-in partner and sawing her body into 35 pieces, which he allegedly kept in a 300-litre fridge and dumped in a jungle over 18 days.
He was arrested on November 12 after the woman's father, who had not spoken to her for almost a year as he was opposed to the couple's inter-faith (Hindu-Muslim) relationship, went to the cops as her friends told him she hadn't spoken to them too for months.
Some right-wing organisations and BJP leaders have alleged a communal angle to the crime, though the police haven't said anything on those lines. Yet, men claiming to be from a Hindu outfit on Monday attacked a police van carrying Aaftab; cops fired in the air and arrested two of them.
Aaftab was in police custody for two weeks, and has been judicial custody since November 26.