The prosecution in Ketan Agarwal murder case on Friday sought three-day extension for police custody of Siya Goyal and Chetan Chaudhary, the prime accused in Pune realtor Ketan Agarwal's murder case.
Siya and Chetan are accused of pushing Ketan to death from Lohagad Fort in Pune on June 18. On Friday, the duo was produced before Judicial Magistrate First Class AM Vibhute after the expiry of their police custody, news agency PTI reported.
The prosecution sought three-day extension of police custody as it argued that data recovered from Siya and Chetan's mobile phones contained chats in signs and coded language, and that their custodial interrogation was necessary to decode the conversations.
Also read: Death toll climbs as rising temperatures keep Europe boiling, no relief in sight
However, the accused's counsel opposed the plea and said the police had already been given enough time to investigate the case and that further custodial interrogation was unwarranted.
After hearing both sides, the court rejected the prosecution's plea and remanded the accused in judicial custody till July 16.
The prosecution informed the court that police had conducted a panchnama at the spot where Goyal allegedly disposed of Agarwal's passport while travelling towards Mumbai, PTI reported.
"Investigators also carried out a panchnama at the place where Goyal and Chaudhary allegedly rehearsed how to kill Agarwal," assistant public prosecutor Rajashree Virkud was quoted as saying.
Also read: India approves ₹52,000 crore defence purchases, anti-tank missiles and kamikaze drones included
She said police had recovered another mobile phone belonging to Goyal and sent it to the forensic science laboratory (FSL) for examination.
"Data from the phones seized earlier has already been retrieved, and investigators have received the forensic report. The recovered chats contain coded language, including nicknames and emojis, whose meaning can be explained only by the accused," she said.
Gait analysis, crime reconstruction
Pune Rural Police on Thursday took Siya to a Lullanagar location where she and Chetan had allegedly rehearsed Ketan's murder before actually pushing him off Lohagad Fort. Siya was there for around 30 minutes in the morning, HT reported earlier.
During a search at Goyal’s residence in Pune’s Market Yard area, investigators seized the clothes she was allegedly wearing on June 18, the day Agarwal died.
“The probe found that Siya and Chetan had rehearsed the act at an open space near a club in Lullanagar before carrying it out at Lohagad. She was taken there today and identified the location where the rehearsal had allegedly taken place,” a Pune Rural Police officer said.
Police have also seized Siya's clothes that she was allegedly wearing on the day of Ketan's murder. Pune Rural Police On Wednesday reconstructed the crime scene with Chetan, while a similar reconstruction was conducted with Siya on Sunday. A dummy dummy was pushed off the cliff in her presence, police said.
Ketan and Siya were scheduled to marry in November.
Police also said that Ketan's father, Vishal Agarwal, said in his complaint that his son had repeatedly expressed concern over Goyal’s closeness to Chaudhary and often mentioned his name during conversations.
Meanwhile, police have moved court to conduct a lie detector test on Siya, citing inconsistency in her statements.
The police also did a gait analysis on Chetan. The gait analysis is the studying of human movements when walking or running and is used by cops to identify suspects captured on videos or CCTVs. Following this, the police will complete the legal procedure of the crime scene reconstruction.