The prosecution in the Ketan Agarwal murder case on Friday sought a three-day extension in police custody for Sia Goyal and Chetan Chaudhary, the main accused in the Pune realtor Ketan Agarwal murder case.
Sia and Chetan are accused of pushing Ketan to death from Lohagad Fort in Pune on June 18, news agency PTI reported. On Friday, the duo was produced before First Class Judicial Magistrate AM Vibhut after their police custody ended, news agency PTI reported.
The prosecution sought a three-day extension in police custody as it said the data obtained from Siya and Chetan’s mobile phones contained conversations with encrypted signs and language, and their custodial interrogation was necessary to decode the conversations.
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However, the accused’s lawyer opposed the petition and said that the police had already been given enough time to investigate the case and further custodial interrogation was not justified.
After hearing both sides, the court rejected the prosecution’s request and ordered the defendant to be detained until July 16.
The prosecution informed the court that the police conducted an operation panchnama at the spot where Goyal allegedly disposed of Agarwal’s passport while traveling towards Mumbai, PTI reported.
“Investigators also conducted a panchnama session at the place where Goyal and Chaudhary rehearsed how to kill Agarwal,” Assistant Public Prosecutor Rajashree Virkod was quoted as saying.
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She said the police found another mobile phone belonging to Goyal and sent it to the forensic laboratory for examination.
She added: “Data has already been recovered from the phones that were confiscated earlier, and investigators have received the forensic report. The recovered chats contain encrypted language, including nicknames and emojis, the meaning of which can only be interpreted by the accused.”
Gait analysis, crime reconstruction
The Pune Rural Police on Thursday took Sia to a location in Lollanagar, where she and Chetan allegedly practiced killing Ketan before actually pushing him out of Lohagad Fort. HT had earlier reported that Sia was there for about 30 minutes in the morning.
During a search of Goyal’s home in Pune’s Market Yard area, investigators seized clothes she was allegedly wearing on June 18, the day Agarwal died.
“The investigation found that Sia and Chetan rehearsed the act at an open place near a club in Lullanagar before carrying it out in Lohagad. They were taken there today and identified the location where the training allegedly took place,” a Pune Rural Police officer said.
The police also confiscated the clothes Sia was allegedly wearing on the day Ketan was killed. The Pune Rural Police on Wednesday reconstructed the crime scene with Chetan, while a similar reconstruction was carried out with Sia on Sunday. Police said a dummy was pushed off the cliff in her presence.
Ketan and Siya were scheduled to get married in November.
The police also said that Ketan’s father, Vishal Agarwal, said in his complaint that his son repeatedly expressed concern about Goyal’s proximity to Chaudhary and often mentioned his name during conversations.
Meanwhile, the police moved to court to conduct a lie detector test on Sia, citing inconsistencies in her statements.
The police also analyzed Chetan’s gait. Gait analysis is the study of human movements when walking or running and is used by police to identify suspects captured on videos or surveillance cameras. After that, the police will complete the legal procedures to reconstruct the crime scene.
