The First Class Judicial Magistrate Court Kotdwar, in Uttarakhand on Wednesday gave its consent to conduct the narco and polygraph tests of expelled BJP leader’s son Pulkit Arya, the main accused in Ankita Bhandari murder case, reported ANI.
Ankita’s body was recovered from Chilla canal in Uttarakhand’s Rishikesh on September 24, six days after she was reported missing. The 19-year-old girl worked as a receptionist at the Vanantra resort in Rishikesh run by Pulkit Arya, son of BJP leader Vinod Arya.
Pulkit was arrested for allegedly pushing her into the canal following an altercation. Two managers working at the resort – Ankit Gupta and Saurabh Bhaskar – were also arrested, as they were also present with him.
The Special Investigation Team (SIT) is probing the case. Judicial Magistrate Bhavana Pandey granted permission to the SIT for Pulkit’s narcoanalysis and polygraph test, but rejected the plea to subject the two other accused to these tests, prosecution lawyer Jitendra Rawat said.
The SIT had filed a petition in the court, seeking permission to conduct the tests of all the three accused, Rawat added, and said that the test will be conducted on Pulkit following the court’s consent.
Consent was taken from Pulkit on behalf of the Judicial Magistrate through video conferencing, after which the verdict was delivered.
The Uttarakhand Police on December 4 had said that probe in the case was almost complete, and only narco tests of the three accused were left.
Earlier, the three accused had refused to undergo the narco and polygraph tests, citing the SIT did not explain why it wanted to conduct the tests after filing the chargesheet.
On December 19, the SIT filed a chargesheet running into 500 pages in connection with the Ankita Bhandari murder case, based on the statements of 97 witnesses, post-mortem reports and electronic evidence collected from the scene of the crime.