Police sources say that the investigation team for the Ketan Agarwal murder case is preparing to conduct a Polygraph test on Siya Goyal. The investigators are preparing to seek court approval and believe that the test may provide answers to many unresolved questions in the case.
To conduct a polygraph test, both the court's permission and the consent of the person to be tested are required.
Polygraph test results are not considered conclusive evidence and are not directly admissible in Indian courts.
The investigators are reportedly resorting to this measure as there has been no conclusive or concrete evidence, such as CCTV recordings or eyewitness statements, that can prove that Ketan Agarwal was murdered by Siya Goyal or her co-accused ‘lover’ Chetan Choudhary.
Police are relying on digital and circumstantial evidence such as forensic examinations of their mobile call records, deleted messages, location data, available CCTV footage and statements from families to build their case.
A police source also said that crime scene recreations using a dummy, such as the one they conducted this week, carried little evidentiary value, News18 reported. One police source said, “The way a dummy falls depends on its weight distribution, angle and velocity. It cannot scientifically establish whether the victim was deliberately pushed or accidentally slipped.”
Investigators believe that if Siya inadvertently reveals information in the test, such as her digital activity, they can be used as leads to search for digital or forensic evidence that would be admissible in court.
For the court to convict a person, all circumstantial evidence should point to a single conclusion to establish the guilt of the accused.
In the most recent police questioning, Siya’s brother, Sahil Goyal, claimed that Siya was fully excited about her wedding and partook in all of the pre-wedding preparation. He also said that Siya never wanted to end the relationship.
This statement, however, directly contradicts the conclusion by the police who claimed that Siya pushed Ketan off the cliff because she wanted to delay getting married. They also said that Siya informed her brother that she did not want to marry Ketan and that he was also aware of her relationship with Chetan.
