Odisha court allows polygraph test on suspended cop in Army officer assault case

A court in Odisha’s Bhubaneswar on Wednesday granted permission to the CID conduct a polygraph test on the police inspector who has been suspended over the alleged sexual assault on the fiancée of an Indian Army Captain at Bharatpur police station in the wee hours of September 15.

The court of sub divisional judicial magistrate allowed the CID to conduct polygraph test on Dinakrushna Mishra, who allegedly sexually assaulted the 32-year-old woman when she had gone to the station to lodge a complaint of road rage against a few miscreants.

The Mohan Majhi government on Sunday ordered a probe by a retired high court judge into the woman’s allegations.

The woman, who runs a restaurant in Bhubaneswar, had gone out with her fiancé on the intervening night of September 14 and 15 when they were waylaid by a dozen people who started fighting with them. She alleged that when both of them went to the Bharatpur PS for lodging an FIR against the miscreants while identifying herself as a lawyer, a woman constable on duty got angry and misbehaved with her. After the case was handed over to CID, the Army alleged that the officer was illegally detained while his girlfriend was sexually assaulted before being arrested. The inspector of the police station and four others there have since been suspended.

The CID, which is probing the case, had approached the court for polygraph tests. CID officials said they will soon take the suspended inspector to Gandhinagar in Gujarat for the polygraph test. Mishra has also given consent for lie detection, brain-mapping and narco-analysis tests. The suspended inspector told the court that he was innocent and not involved in the commission of the offences as alleged against him.

CID officials said the polygraph test was important to examine the veracity of the allegations and counter allegations in the alleged torture of the serving Army Officer and alleged sexual assault of his fiancée. The CID, meanwhile, recreated the crime scene at Bharatpur police station and Chandaka road as well where the Army officer and his fiancée were allegedly harassed by miscreants. The woman has already been given a personal security officer (PSO).