NIA to conduct Punjab SP’s lie-detector test next week

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, January 15

The anti-terror probe agency NIA has set into motion the legal process to get Punjab Police SP Salwinder Singh’s consent to subject him to a lie-detector test. The agency plans to conduct the test on the officer sometime next week.

Sources in the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) said that even after several rounds of questioning for five consecutive days and also confronting him with his cook Madan Gopal and caretaker of Dargah Somraj, the officer — who is presently posted as Assistant Commandant with 75th Battalion of the Punjab Armed Police – made changes in his statements.

Salwinder Singh, shunted out barely few days before the January 1-2 terror strike as Superintendent of Police (headquarters) of Gurdaspur and facing alleged charges of breach of discipline, has given his in-principle consent for a polygraph test, sources said.

Sources said that the NIA, which has been probing the case, will move an application before a designated court here tomorrow seeking permission for conducting a polygraph test on Salwinder.

His car was hijacked by terrorists before they entered the Pathankot IAF base on the intervening night of December 31 and January 1.

Sources said that bringing the witnesses and accused face to face was necessary because of the “conflicting statements”. While Salwinder had told the Punjab Police he regularly visited the shrine, Somraj claimed that he had seen him for the first time hours before the terrorists launched the attack on the Pathankot facility.