Kochi: In what may hamper the progress of probe into the skeleton in drum case, the effort of the special investigation team to conduct polygraph test on a key suspect may not happen anytime now. The Principal Sessions Court in Ernakulam is set to take up the petition of the cops seeking nod for conducting lie-detection test on Aswathy, daughter of victim Shankunthala whose skeleton was found sandwiched in concrete in a plastic drum at Kumbalam in January last, on Friday.
However, sources said Aswathy has not accepted a notice in this regard yet and may not appear before the court on Friday. “The case is posted for Friday and the woman is supposed to express her consent in open court as per procedure. She had earlier expressed consent for the same to the probe team. However, she may not appear at court on Friday. The court may postpone the case,” said a senior official with the probe team.
Meanwhile, officials said the woman moved court seeking an anticipatory bail plea a couple of days back, which got rejected. During probe, the cops had found that Shakunthala was murdered by one T M Sajith, a native of Eroor who had committed suicide soon after recovery of the skeleton. They suspect Sujith and Aswathy, lover of Sajith, to be members of a goon’s gang based in Thiruvankulam and might have eyed the nearly Rs six lakh Shakunthala had in her bank account.
However, during interrogation Aswathy reiterated that she had only worked at the tailor shop of the gang head, a woman, and that she knew nothing more. Meanwhile, the probe team will also look into the financial transactions made by Shakunthala before her going missing. “We’ll look whether the victim had any unaccounted black money dealings involving the gang,” they said. The police had recovered three old notes of '500 effective in circulation before demonetisation along with the skeleton.
