In a big development in the Sunanda Pushkar murder case, a Delhi court on Wednesday allowed polygraph test on three “suspects”, who are being accused by the Delhi Police of lying in the case.
The court gave its nod to a lie detector test after three – Shashi Tahroo’s domestic help Narain Singh, driver Bajrangi and friend Sanjay Dewan – agreed to go through the test. They have demanded that Supreme Court and National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) guidelines be followed by the police, while they are subjected to polygraph test.
The police has accused them of concealing material facts about Sunanda’s mysterious death on January 17, 2014.
Citing specific instances to claim that they are lying, the police told the court that the three were Tharoor’s close associates and were in present at Hotel Leela Palace just before Sunanda’s death.
“During investigation, it has been found that the three persons are concealing material facts and did not disclose several issues related to the death of Sunanda Pushkar,” the plea filed by SHO of Sarojini Nagar Police Station said.
It said that on January 17, Tharoor’s close friend Sanjay Dewan came to the hotel at 5 pm and remained there till the discovery of Pushkar’s death. He could not give plausible reason for cancelling his trip to Mumbai and his coming to the hotel in Delhi, it said.
Among the other points raised by the police was his silence about a power cut in room no. 345 just before the discovery of Sunanda’s death and, despite being there, they failed to explain the injury marks on Sunanda’s body.
The police claimed he did not wake up Pushkar for two and a half hours and also not explained why he preferred Dr Rajan Mohan, who came all the way from Patel Nagar, over the hotel doctor who could come within a short span of time.
It alleged that Dewan did not give proper explanation for sending driver Bajrangi to bring Dr Mohan even without meeting Pushkar in her room.
Police said that Dewan did not produce his cell phone which was required to retrieve the text messages exchanged between him and Tharoor as per the call details. “It shows that he is hiding the material facts related to this case,” it said.
Regarding suspect Narain, the police said he had cited repair work at Tharoor’s official residence – 97 Lodhi Estate – was the reason for Pushakr’s stay at the hotel but investigations later proved that the repair work was over before January 15, the day Sunanda arrived in Delhi from Thiruvananthapuram. The police alleged that Narain tried to mislead the investigation.
