An analysis of Sia Goyal and Chetan Chaudhary’s conversations indicates that they “wed secretly”, months before the duo murdered his ex-fiancée Ketan Agarwal, a Pune police official said on Tuesday.
Goyal and Chaudhary are accused of murdering 25-year-old Pune-based realtor Ketan Agarwal, for allegedly pushing him away from a video clip at Lohagad Fort on June 18. While Agarwal and Goyal were scheduled to get married on November 18 this year, an investigation is underway to verify unconfirmed reports of a marriage between Goyal and her boyfriend Chetan Chaudhary.
“Analysis of chats exchanged between Sia and Chetan suggests that they got married secretly. There are also unconfirmed reports of their marriage. We are verifying this claim and are also checking whether the marriage is legally registered,” a senior official from Pune Rural Police told news agency PTI.
The police had earlier told a Pune court that the accused were using sign language and symbols in their conversations.
The accused were remanded in judicial custody after remaining in police custody for more than a week and investigators are examining digital evidence obtained from both Goyal and Chaudhary.
Among the digital evidence seen by the cops, there is also a Snapchat message sent by Goyal to a friend under the scanner. Pakistan News Agency reported that the accused told her friend in the text that her marriage to Ketan would not take place. The message allegedly says: “Send a photo of the front and back of your Aadhaar card to get tickets for the wedding, which won’t happen anyway, but you should still send it.”
Read also | ‘Siya, Chetan used sign and coded language in chats’: Cops reveal while demanding extension of police custody
The accused refuses a polygraph and allegedly discussed the murder plan with Beed’s youth
Goyal and Chaudhary were remanded for 14 days in judicial custody on July 3 after they were produced before Judicial Magistrate First Class (JMFC) AM Vibhute at Wadgaon Maval.
The court refused to extend their police custody and rejected the request of the Pune Rural Police to subject the accused to lie detector tests. This came after the defense opposed the move. Prosecutors said further custodial interrogation was necessary to decrypt the conversations and advance the investigation, according to an earlier HT report.
Police suspect that both Goyal and Chaudhary discussed their plan to kill Agarwal with a youth from Beed, who is also a former colleague of the latter.
The accused reportedly invited him to accompany them to Lohagad Fort on June 18, but the youth refused and advised them not to carry out the act. The investigation revealed that the young man was in regular contact with Chaudhary in the days leading up to the murder, after which the police began examining the trio’s call detail records, digital conversations and other electronic evidence to get clarity on the sequence of events.
