During the course of their investigation, police found that three youths in the neighbourhood used to regularly visit the girl's house and were regularly in touch with her. Three years after a 16-year-old girl had gone missing, Prayagraj police on Monday conducted polygraph or lie-detector test on six persons, including the girl’s parents and her younger sister, suspecting that the family could have deliberately disappeared the 16-year-old to frame others.
Her father had lodged a missing complaint on May 16, 2018, saying that her daughter, a Class 10 student who used to help them in running a tea stall, did not return home from the market. Police later pressed IPC section 363 (kidnapping) and 366 (kidnapping, abducting or inducing woman to compel her for marriage) against unknown people.
During the course of their investigation, police found that three youths in the neighbourhood used to regularly visit the girl’s house and were regularly in touch with her. Police arrested one of the suspect, Vishal Kesarwani (22), in 2019. Later, the girl’s father moved the Allahabad High Court and filed a habeas corpus plea.
“The High Court last year directed the police to get polygraph and narco-analysis test done on all the suspects. After obtaining consent from all six persons, we brought them to Lucknow’s FSL for the polygraph test. All the six suspects would be later taken to Gujarat where they will under narco-analysis test at Gandhinagar FSL,” the Investigating Officer (IO) said.
Among the three neighbours, Vishal, who worked as a labourer, is in judicial custody since 2019 when police arrested him on kidnapping charge. The other two youths are Salman (30) and Zakir (28).
“In her statement to police, the girl’s sister said that Vishal had told her over the phone that he knew her sister’s whereabouts. To verify this claim, police decided to conduct the test on her,” said the IO, adding that chargesheet against Vishal has been filed.