Odisha Custody Assault Case: Suspended Cops To Be Taken To Gujarat Today

Bhubaneswar: The Odisha Crime Branch (CB), probing the custodial assault an Army officer and his fiancée at Bharatpur police station, will take suspended inspector Dinakrushna Mishra and four other police personnel to Gandhinagar in Gujarat for a lie-detector test on Sunday.

On September 25, sub-divisional judicial magistrate court in Bhubaneswar allowed CB to conduct narco-analysis, polygraph, and brain finger printing of the former inspector-in-charge (IIC) of Bharatpur police station, who allegedly sexually assaulted the 32-year-old woman when she along with her fiancéhad gone to the station to lodge a road rage complaint.

A day later, the agency again moved the court seeking permission to subject sub-inspector (SI) Baisalini Panda, ASI’s Salilamayee Sahoo and Sagarika Rath, and constable Balaram Hansda to lie-detector test at the state forensic science laboratory in Gandhinagar, Gujarat.

While Mishra will undergo lie detector test, brain mapping and narco-analysis on Monday, the four others will be subjected to lie detector test, sources said.

As per the court, scientific methodology may assist in revealing the truth in this case.

The CB appealed for a lie-detector test since determining the veracity of the allegations and counter allegations had become difficult in the absence of CCTV cameras at the police station on the night of the incident and lack of independent witnesses.

According to the allegations, the woman and her fiancé were waylaid by some youths on the intervening night of September 14 and 15. When the couple went to the Bharatpur police station to lodge an FIR, the officer was illegally detained and the woman was sexually assaulted before being arrested for creating fracas and assaulting a woman cop.

Following a nation-wide furore over the incident, the Odisha DGP ordered a CB probe and suspended the inspector of the police station and four others on September 18.

Besides the CB probe, the Mohan Majhi government has also ordered an inquiry by a retired High Court judge into the woman’s allegations.