HS Phoolka: Jagdish Tytler had himself sought ‘Lie Detection Test’ earlier

DAKHA, Punjab—Taking on key culprit of 1984 Sikh genocide Jagdish Tytler for refusing to undergo polygraph (lie detection) test, former Advocate of Supreme Court Harvinder Singh Phoolka said that Tytler used to talk of undergoing lie detection test himself while interacting with media. He said that the refusal of Jagdish Tytler to undergo ‘Lie Detection Test’ reveals that he was guilty of instigating Hindu mobs to kill innocent Sikh youths.

It is noteworthy here that the CBI had sought permission from Metropolitan Court of Delhi to conduct Tytler’s lie detection test to unearth the truthfulness of his statements made before the probing agency. The case pertains to killing of three innocent Sikh youths named Badal Singh, Thakur Singh and Gurcharan Singh near a Gurdwara Sahib in Pulbangash area of Northern Delhi.

Phoolka said that Jagdish Tytler had bribed Giani Surinder Singh, the key witness of the case by remitting large sums of money to Canada to him.  He said that the amount was initially freezed by the Canadian authorities but later the Arms and Ammunition dealer Abhishek Verma helped them in de-freezing the remitted amount.

Phoolka added that the Arms dealer Abhishek Verma, who is also proximate of another Sikh genocide culprit Sajjan Kumar, had confessed before the CBI that he helped Jagdish Tytler in making the remitted amount available to son of key witness. He further said that the conduction of Polygraph test on Jagdish Tytler as well as Abhishek Verma was required to unearth their criminal face. He sought filing of charge sheet against the two culprits if they refuse to undergo ‘Lie Detection Test’.

LIE DETECTION OR POLYGRAPH TEST

What is a Polygraph Test?

A polygraph, popularly referred to as a lie detector, measures and records several physiological indices such as blood pressure, pulse, respiration, and skin conductivity while the subject is asked and answers a series of questions.

A polygraph machine records the body’s involuntary responses to an examiner’s questions in order to ascertain deceptive behaviour. The test measures physiological data from three or more systems of the human body-generally the respiratory, cardiovascular, and sweat gland systems-but not the voice.

Are lie detector test accurate?

The accuracy of polygraph testing has long been controversial. An underlying problem is theoretical: There is no evidence that any pattern of physiological reactions is unique to deception. An honest person may be nervous when answering truthfully and a dishonest person may be non-anxious.

How does a lie detector test work?

If you’re like most people, lying makes your heart race. It makes you pant. It drives up your blood pressure and makes you drip sweat. A polygraph machine detects lies by looking for signs of these physiological changes.

Testing Procedure:

The examiner typically begins polygraph test sessions with a pre-test interview to gain some preliminary information which will later be used to develop diagnostic questions. Then the tester will explain how the polygraph is supposed to work, emphasizing that it can detect lies and that it is important to answer truthfully. Then a “stim test” is often conducted: the subject is asked to deliberately lie and then the tester reports that he was able to detect this lie. Guilty subjects are likely to become more anxious when they are reminded of the test’s validity. However, there are risks of innocent subjects being equally or more anxious than the guilty.Then the actual test starts. Some of the questions asked are “irrelevant” or IR (“Is your name Fred?”), others are “diagnostic” questions, and the remainder are the “relevant questions”, or RQ, that the tester is really interested in. The different types of questions alternate. The test is passed if the physiological responses to the diagnostic questions are larger than those during the relevant questions (RQ).