Main accused in Shehla murder refuse polygraph tests

The main accused in the Shehla Masood murder case Zahida Pervez and her assistant Saba Farooqi have both refused to undergo polygraph tests.

Earlier, both parties had agreed to undergo the lie detection test, following which, the court told the CBI to go ahead and conduct the polygraph tests. The test had been scheduled for Monday.

BJP MLA Dhruv Narayan Singh is also supposed to undergo the lie detection test on Monday.

CBI officials have said that Shehla Masood’s murder appears to be a “crime of passion” and have stated that they still need to investigate if it was part of a larger conspiracy.

“Investigations so far indicate the RTI activist’s murder appears to be a crime of passion. Whether or not the murder was part of a larger conspiracy is a matter of further probe,” the officials said in Bhopal. Specifically asked about the suspected role of Madhya Pradesh BJP MLA Dhruv Narayan Singh in the case, they said, “We have not given a clean chit to him.”

The CBI has so far arrested three persons in connection with the case and they include city-based interior designer Zahida Pervez, her assistant Saba Farooqi and Shakib Ali ‘Danger’, an alleged history-sheeter.

“So far, it is clear that interior designer Zahida Pervez was the one who gave the contract for eliminating Shehla to Shakib Danger,” the officials alleged. According to preliminary probe, Zahida was jealous of Masood’s alleged closeness with MLA Singh.

A CBI team with the support of local police had closely examined nearly nine lakh calls especially those made from Koh-e-Fiza, the area where Masood lived and where she was shot dead on 16 August 2011.

The monitoring of calls found that Masood was shot dead at 11:19. At 11.26 am, a confirmation call was made to Zahida, the officials claimed.

It was Shakib ‘Danger’ who had allegedly arranged for killers from Kanpur on the instructions of Zahida for a sum of Rs 5 lakh. Of this amount, Rs 3 lakh was paid to the assailants, the officials alleged.

Though the details of the entire crime was revealed by the alleged shooter, Irfaan, the CBI is still in the process of stitching together the entire episode.

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