Court rejects NIA plea seeking lie detector test on IRF employee

Arshi Qureshi and Rizwan Khan.

A SPECIAL court in Mumbai rejected the National Investigation Agency’s plea seeking to conduct a lie detector test on Arshi Qureshi, arrested for allegedly instigating Kerala youths to join terrorist organisation Islamic State. On Monday, the NIA had approached special Judge V V Patil seeking the test on Qureshi, an employee of Islamic Research Foundation. Qureshi, who was also produced before court as per Supreme Court provisions that require his consent to be taken for the test, said he did not want to undergo it.

Qureshi, a Navi Mumbai resident, who was employed as a guest manager at IRF, had also told court that he did not want to give any confession to the NIA. He told court that he was being tortured ‘psychologically’ with the threat to violence. His advocate, Ishrat Khan had also argued that the test would mean the accused being forced to incriminate himself.

On Tuesday, Judge Patil announced that he had rejected the plea. The detailed grounds of the order were not available. Qureshi and two others, Rizwan Khan and Maulana Mohammed Haneef, are in NIA custody till Wednesday.