NEW DELHI, 5 July 2005 — The CBI is confident about Amit Jogi’s involvement in a murder case, but has not yet secured a confession from him. As three days of questioning have failed to secure any confession from Amit about his involvement in the murder of Chhattisgarh Congress party treasurer Ram Avtar Jaggi, the CBI has decided to place him under lie detector and brain mapping tests.

Amit Jogi, son of former Congress Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Ajit Jogi was arrested on July 1 when he appeared before CBI for questioning in connection with Jaggi’s murder. He has been remanded in CBI custody till July 8 for his alleged involvement in Jaggi’s murder. After failing to respond to two notices from CBI, Amit turned up on July 1, after the CBI director U.S. Mishra said that stern action would be taken if he continued to avoid questioning. He was grilled for several hours but as he failed to respond properly, officials decided to place him under arrest. Amit will now be subjected to polygraphic test and a brain-mapping test. Prior to this, he would be asked to fill a bond stating that he was undergoing the test willingly. In case, Amit refuses to undergo the test, the denial will become a circumstantial evidence against him in court, sources said.

The brain mapping test at Ahmedabad-based CFSL, would also be used as part of evidence against him, sources said. Jaggi was shot dead in Raipur on June 4, 2003. Following implications that the Chhattisgarh police was doing a cover-up operation by falsely implicating certain people under political pressure, the case created a political storm and was subsequently handed over to CBI.

The Bharatiya Janata Party government in Chhattisgarh handed over the case to the CBI after it came to power in December 2003.

The CBI turned its attention to Amit after the arrested accused Suresh and Baltu Pathak recorded their confessional statements before a magistrate stating that they were arrested to save some politicians who had been named in the FIR. In his police complaint, Jaggi’s son, Satish named Ajit Jogi and Amit Jogi as prime suspects.

Earlier, CBI had arrested police officials Deputy Superintendent of Police (Raipur) A.S. Gill and sub-inspector R.C. Trivedi for allegedly charge-sheeting five innocent persons in Jaggi’s murder case. Of the 14 persons arrested in connection with the case, several are held to be close associates of Amit. Some are former office-bearers of the students’ wing of Congress, the NSUI. Though Amit has continuously denied his involvement in Jaggi’s murder, CBI claims that it has enough “hard evidence” against him. Refusing to divulge the details, sources said that CBI’s case against Amit does not rest only on the confessional statements of the two arrested accused, Suresh and Baltu Pathak. CBI will produce Amit before the designated court in Raipur, where the case has been booked, after the completion of his six-day CBI custody.

Amit’s father has repeatedly defended his son as innocent. Ajit Jogi said: “He is being falsely implicated for political reasons… My political opponents have kept on attacking me. This keeps happening in politics. But it is sad that politics has been brought down to such a low level.”