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Bathinda military station killings: Accused soldier to undergo polygraph test
Bathinda superintendent of police (investigation) Ajay Gandhi, who headed the probe, said the test will be held at the Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL), New Delhi, soon. Gandhi said the lie detection test may help investigators connect the missing links in the crime.
The Indian army jawan Desai Mohan, who is accused of killing four jawans in the Bathinda military station, will undergo a polygraph test as even after two months, the investigators are still trying to ascertain the reason behind the crime.
Bathinda superintendent of police (investigation) Ajay Gandhi, who headed the probe, said the test will be held at the Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL), New Delhi, soon. Gandhi said the lie detection test may help investigators connect the missing links in the crime.
Senior superintendent of police (SSP) Gulneet Khurana said on Tuesday that the accused Mohan, who is in judicial custody, has given his consent to undergo the forensic test.
Khurana said that the police probe has been inconclusive as the reason for the killing has not been established yet.
Commenting on earlier media reports that the accused Mohan was allegedly subjected to physical abuse by his colleagues, the SSP reiterated that the police still have no evidence of it.
Police sources said a medical examination of the accused was initiated to ascertain claims of physical abuse. “The samples were sent to the forensic science laboratory in SAS Nagar, and the report is still awaited. There is no scientific evidence to corroborate the charge of physical abuse,” said an official privy to the probe.
“Our team secured a go-ahead from the trial court recently to conduct a test on Mohan. We are awaiting the date of the test by the laboratory,” the SSP added.
On April 12, four soldiers — Sagar Banne, Kamlesh R, Santosh Nagaral, and Yogeshkumar J — were shot dead as they slept in their rooms near the officers’ mess. Five days after the crime, the district police arrested Mohan for allegedly murdering his colleagues.
In a joint press conference held in Bathinda on April 16, Bathinda SSP and Colonel Animesh Sharan from the Bathinda military station said that the accused confessed to turning the gun on his colleagues to avenge ‘humiliation and harassment meted out to him by them.’
As per the police, it was a premeditated targeted killing and Mohan stole an INSAS (Indian Small Arms System) rifle with 20 cartridges and eight bullets of a light machine gun (LMG) on April 10 to eliminate four gunners from an artillery unit.
According to the first information report (FIR), lodged at the cantonment police station on April 12, the accused Mohan was the sole witness to the crime.
The case was registered on the complaint of Major Ashutosh Shukla of 80 Medium Regiment, who quoted Mohan’s information that one of the assailants was carrying an INSAS rifle and the other an axe. Mohan had claimed that he had spotted two masked men in white kurta-pyjama near the crime scene.
But after a police investigation, Mohan turned out to be the perpetrator of the crime, and the police recovered the weapon and ammunition from the military base.
