The Special POTA court on Wednesday granted the Ahmedabad City Detection of Crime Branch (DCB) permission to conduct lie detection test on Mohammed Umarji alias Majid Patel, recently arrested in connection with the 2002 Akshardham attack.

Umarji’s counsel C B Raval said that they did not put much effort to oppose the application as his client was confident about his innocence. Umarji is accused of providing funds to the accused, which he got through hawala from Dubai.

According to DCB officials, the accused is a key in the hawala racket, which funded the entire terror attack in which 33 people were killed and over 80 were injured.

They wanted to put him under the lie-detection test, as he is not cooperating with the investigation.

Chief Public Prosecutor Sudhir Brahmbhatt said the test would be conducted on April 17 and 18 at the Forensic Science Laboratory.

On September 24, 2002, Akshardham Temple, run by Akshar Purshottam Swaminarayan Sansthan, was attacked by two Pakistan-based terrorists belonging to Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT). They lobbed grenades and opened indiscriminate fire at devotees in the temple premises.

The designated POTA court had convicted six persons for the attack in July 2006. Three of the six accused were sentenced to death. One of the three others, who were sentenced imprisonment, has already been released after his term ended.