THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Even as police remained unsuccessful in tracking down Rahul Mamkootathil, who has been booked for raping a woman and forcing her to terminate her pregnancy, the beleaguered legislator has filed additional pieces of evidence via his counsel in sealed covers before the principal district and sessions court, which will hear his anticipatory bail plea on Wednesday.
The current set of evidence, sources said, filed on Monday contained more WhatsApp text messages and audio and video files, accompanied by a certificate containing hash value of the records, details of the device used and the algorithm used to generate the hash.
Legal sources said the accused submitted documents to further buttress his claim that he had a consensual relationship with the woman and the affair continued when she remained with her husband.
In his plea, Rahul had claimed he and the complainant had a long-standing friendship. He said he entered into a friendship and later a sexual relationship with the woman knowing she was married. He denied allegations of assault and noted that he neither raped her nor forced her to undergo an abortion.
Rahul had on Saturday through his advocate, submitted evidence in a pen drive to support his claims. In his petition, Rahul had stated that he should not be held responsible for the survivor’s pregnancy.
To support this, he submitted photographs of the couple together during the period in which the assault is alleged to have happened, along with material that he claims shows the abortion was done on her own willingness and was not coerced.
The third evidence was a WhatsApp chat where the woman was allegedly forced to file a complaint against Rahul by the head of the firm where she had worked. Rahul had alleged that the firm is politically aligned to BJP.
Meanwhile, the police felt Rahul might still be enjoying patronage and support of a section of Congress workers and leaders. This, they felt, was the reason why they could not trace him despite using the entire police machinery.
The investigators, meanwhile, expressed doubts that Rahul may have used the vehicle registered in the name of an actress to flee the district on Thursday after reports emerged of the victim meeting CM Pinarayi Vijayan.