Kavita case: Accused to undergo lie detector tests

A designated Central Bureau of Investigation court has allowed the investigating agency to conduct lie-detector tests on two accused in the Kavita Rani murder case.

Special CBI Magistrate Sapna Mishra directed the Dasna district jail superintendent to make proper arrangements for taking main accused Ravinder Pradhan and co-accused Ramautar Gupta to the CBI headquarters in New Delhi on Thursday.

Mishra also on Tuesday directed the Ghaziabad police to ensure security for the two who would undergo polygraph tests on Thursday and Friday.

The CBI filed an application on February 14 seeking permission to carry out the tests and the magistrate had reserved her orders.

The defence counsel, meanwhile, moved an application against the order in the district and sessions court on Wednesday.

It would be heard on Thursday. Kavita Chaudhry, a lecturer at the Chaudhary Charan Singh University in Meerut, was reportedly last seen by her colleagues at a women's hostel in the city on October 22, 2006.

Pradhan confessed at a news conference called by Meerut senior superintendent of police that he and his accomplices had killed Kavita, stuffed her body in a bag and dumped it in a canal in Bulandshahr.

The body has still to be recovered. He alleged that Kavita was having intimate relations with several influential people, including two former Rashtriya Janata Dal ministers and one Samajwadi Party minister in Uttar Pradesh and they had been blackmailing them.