Pota court allows lie-detector test on Akshardham accused

Majid Patel, who was arrested in connection with the Akshardham temple attack, will be grilled by the Ahmedabad city crime branch in a lie-detection test for two days. This comes in the wake of the designated POTA court judge Jytosnaben Yagnik’s permission on Wednesday to conduct a lie detection test on the accused following a crime branch plea in the court in this regard.

In its application, the investigating agency had stated that it wanted to conduct a lie-detection test on Patel as it wanted to investigate the matter further. Patel had allegedly routed havala money to finance the Akshardham temple attack. Patel was arrested last year by the Bharuch police.

However, counsel of Patel, Chetan Raval submitted that he had no opposition to the crime branch’s demand and that Patel had been co-operating with the investigation process. He also submitted that Patel had himself surrendered to the police and that he had not been brought from Dubai to the country.

Public prosecutor Sudhir Brahmbhatt submitted that a lie-detection test was needed to get details of others involved in the attack. It was alleged that Majid who was the key accused in the Akshardham attack had gone to Saudi Arabia after the incident. Patel was one of the 26 absconders in the case, including Abu Hamza, a Lashkar member now and based in Riyadh.

The court however, rejected a bail application filed by Patel which too had come up for hearing today. In his bail application, Patel had said that there was not an iota of evidence to prove that he had routed money for the attack and that the investigating agency had not conducted an investigation as to whom Patel supplied the money in Bharuch. Patel also said in his application that he was not an absconder.