Mumbai:
A narco-analysis test was conducted on gangster Vijay Palande and his accomplice, already charged with two murders, to find out the details about a third murder case in which they are suspected to be involved.
The police suspect the duo to be involved in the killing of a third person whose skull was recovered during the probe of the twin murders. Palande and his associate Dhananjay Shinde have already been charged with the murder of actor Anuj Tikku's father Arun Tikku and an aspiring film producer, Karan Kakkad.
The test lasted for a few hours during which at least 70 questions related to the murder of the unidentified person were asked, a Crime Branch official told PTI.
Recently, brain mapping and polygraph tests were also conducted on the duo, but nothing substantial came out of them as the two were not forthcoming about certain questions pertaining to the third murder, he said.
Crime Branch officials had on April 16 recovered a skull at Kumbhari Ghat near Chiplun in adjoining Ratnagiri district where Palande had allegedly dumped Kakkad's remains.
While DNA tests confirmed that the torso found at the site was Kakkad's, the skull did not match his DNA. Subsequently, police sought permission from the court to conduct a narco test on Palande and Shinde to help establish identity of the person whose skull was recovered.
The permission was granted recently.
From bloodstains found in Kakkad's residence in suburban Andheri, police suspect the duo is involved in the third murder.
Experts had retrieved DNA of two persons from bloodstains in Kakkad's bathroom. One was Kakkad's and the other matched the skull. This raised suspicion that the accused had killed another person in Kakkad's house and dumped his body in the ghat.
So far, five cases have been filed against Palande. The first case pertains to murder of actor Anuj Tikku's father Arun, the second one is for obtaining passport on fake documents, the third case is of Kakkad's murder, the fourth one is for escaping from police custody and the fifth is for the murder of an unknown person whose skull was found in Kumbharli ghats.
Palande was arrested on April 10 for his alleged role in the Arun Tikku murder case. Subsequently, he was booked in other cases.