KOCHI: The hunt for the mobile phone was like a scene right out of the detective thriller starring Mammootty, Oru CBI Diary Kurippu.
While in the movie the protagonist uses a human-sized dummy to solve the case, the probe team used a dummy of the phone to zero in on the spot where the phone may have landed when the accused threw it to the backwaters.
Police reached the spot at 10 am with the accused persons - Pulsar Suni and Vijeesh. Officers asked Suni to describe the incident. Suni was directed to throw a granite tile of almost the same size and weight as the smartphone used by the accused from the Goshree bridge into the backwaters.
When all the preparations were done, he was asked to repeat the action. When Suni told the cops he had thrown the mobile phone in casually and without much force, the officers asked him to thrown the dummy in the same manner. After police had narrowed down on the possible location of the phone, they sought the Indian Navy’s help.
A Navy spokesperson said for the divers it does not matter if the object is electronic or non-electronic. He said there was no separate equipment to trace electronic devices.
There are electronic devices that can transmit waves even under water, but a smartphone is not such an equipment, he clarified. “It would have turned off as soon as it came in contact with the water. Tracing it is more difficult if the ‘object’ is immersed in the mud due to the water current, which can also cause a change in its position,” he said.
When contacted, an oceanographer with National Institute of Oceanography said chances of the mobile phone moving far is unlikely as the area does not have strong currents. “It is unlikely to have moved a great distance. The backwaters in this part are 3.5-5 m deep. A mobile phone thrown into the water would be submerged. Whether it remains under the lake bed or it changes position would depend on the speed of the water flow,” the officer, who sought anonymity, said.
In the Mammootty movie, the ‘dummy act’ turned out to be a turning point. But in this real-life act, it proved to be a futile exercise. At least, for now.