KOCHI: The crime branch on Tuesday informed the Kerala High Court that a major part of the data with regard to the conspiracy to murder police officers who investigated the 2017 actor abduction and sexual assault case was deleted from the mobile phones used by actor Dileep and other accused persons.
The major extraction had taken place on January 29 and January 30 this year after the High Court directed them to produce the phones before the court registrar-general. On analysis of the forensic reports, vital evidence was obtained by the crime branch team against Dileep and others, stated the report.
The crime branch filed the report in response to the petition filed by Dileep seeking to quash the FIR against him. He also sought a CBI probe in the case, if the FIR cannot be quashed. The magistrate had sent six mobile phones used by Dileep and other accused persons for scientific examination.
“On verification of the forensic examination report of the six mobile phones, including the iPhones used by Dileep, it was revealed that these were already subjected for extraction, transferring, deletion and restoring of data. Most importantly, the major extraction had taken place on January 29 and 30, 2022.
The High Court had directed them to produce the phones on January 29. Therefore, it is crystal clear that in total disregard of the order passed by the court, Dileep had tampered with the evidence,” stated the crime branch report, and added that the tampering with evidence by deletion and shredding are evident for the documents.
The investigation carried out in Mumbai revealed that Dileep’s counsel had sent four mobile phones by courier to a lab in Mumbai to extract data from them. The cyber forensic analysis report submitted by the crime branch reveals that “the detailed examination of the WhatsApp chats in the iPhone used by Dileep shows that chats up to December 25, 2021, are available in the phone memory and many chats are found to be deleted.
The examination of the iPhone also shows that WhatsApp was configured to another device. On examination of another iPhone, it was revealed that 12 WhatsApp messages or conversations were seen to be cleared between 1.36pm and 2.32pm on January 30 and the start time and last activity time of all these chats are found to be the same.