Aaftab's confessions have no legal validity: Experts

December 01, 2022 10:16

The reported "confessions", including those allegedly made before a magistrate, by Mehrauli killing accused Aaftab Amin Poonawala do not have conclusive legal validity, experts said, doubting that several key conditions were not fulfilled.

Though police and other official sources have claimed that Poonawala had confessed to killing his live-in partner Shraddha Walkar and dismembering her body, his counsel has said Poonawala had denied that he had confessed.

The legal experts also questioned Poonawala's confession before a magistrate through video conferencing and termed it objectionable and unprecedented.

News reports quoting sources in the Delhi Police have claimed on multiple occasions that Poonawala had confessed to killing Walkar, cutting her body into 35 pieces and dumping them in different areas of the city.

On Wednesday, it was reported that he has confessed to his crime in a polygraph test conducted at the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) in Rohini, to which retired Delhi High Court judge Justice RS Sondhi said narcoanalysis and polygraph test are "useless and a waste of time as they have no legal sanctity".

"What he did after killing the girl is merely destruction of evidence," he said.

Earlier, on November 22, Delhi Police sources had claimed that during the hearing of extension of Poonawala's remand application, he told the magistrate through video conferencing that he killed Walkar in the heat of the moment and it was not deliberate.

Soon after that, Poonawala's lawyer Abinash Kumar contradicted the police version and said he never made any such confession before the magistrate. On his confession through video conferencing, Justice Sondhi said, "This is an objectionable method of appearance. You do not know under what pressure he was in. He should have been physically present before the magistrate."

The Delhi Police has claimed that he appeared through video conferencing as there was a safety issue. On November 28, a police van carrying Poonawala was attacked by some weapon-wielding people outside the FSL where he was taken for polygraph test. -- PTI

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