Parliament security breach case: Five of six accused consent to polygraph test

Five of the six accused in the parliament security breach case on Friday granted their consent to be administered a polygraph test, The Indian Express reported.

The Delhi Police had on December 28 sought permission from a Delhi court to conduct the polygraph test, or a lie detection test, on all six persons arrested in the case.

On December 13, two men had jumped into the Lok Sabha chamber from the visitors’ gallery and opened gas canisters. Outside Parliament, a man and a woman had opened smoke canisters and shouted “stop dictatorship”.

The police had arrested the six persons and filed a case against them under the anti-terror provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. They have been identified as Manoranjan D, Sagar Sharma, Amol Dhanraj Shinde, Neelam Azad, Lalit Jha and Mahesh Kumawat.

Except Azad, all accused have agreed to be subjected to the polygraph test.

Azad had also moved a habeas corpus petition before the Delhi High Court. The court, however, dismissed the plea on the grounds that she had moved a bail application before the trial court.

On Friday, the Delhi court also extended the police custody of the accused by eight days.

Special Public Prosecutor Akhand Pratap Singh told the Delhi court that a Forensic Science Laboratory report on the data recovered from the mobile phones of the accused will be available by Monday and the police will be in a better position to confront the accused with that information, the newspaper reported.

“We do not know what we will find…certain passwords have to be recovered,” Singh argued as he sought an extension of police custody.

However, the counsel representing the accused argued that the grounds for the extension of police custody stated by the prosecution were not enough and that the things that the police wanted to do are possible even if the accused were in judicial custody.

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