KOCHI: In a shocking revelation, the crime branch has confirmed that actor Dileep was in possession of the visuals of the sexual assault on the actor inside a moving car in 2017. The memory card containing the visuals — that was in the court’s custody — had been accessed too, the agency has said. “Digital data received from the phone of Dileep’s brother Anoop helped conclude that the actor is in possession of either the original memory card containing the visuals or its copy,” the crime branch said in its report to the Kerala High Court while seeking three more months to complete the probe. Dileep is the eighth accused in the case.
“The data from Anoop’s phone shows photographs of the print in which second-by-second commentary of the assault visuals is described. When confronted, Anoop said he took the photographs from the office of Dileep’s counsel. However, an analysis of digital evidence showed he lied,” said the report, a copy of which is with TNIE.
“Further probe revealed that Dileep’s friend Sarath G Nair was in possession of a tab containing the visuals. He had handed over the device to Dileep, who then viewed the visuals along with his associates in the presence of director P Balachandrakumar (a witness),” the report said. The tab has not been recovered, it said, adding that Sarath was arrested under IPC Section 201 for causing disappearance of evidence.
The crime branch said Dileep and his associates, with the help of others, indulged in tampering with and destroying proof. However, the police could retrieve valuable evidence to reveal the crime. “The soft copy of the reports submitted by Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL), Thiruvananthapuram, regarding the six mobile phones runs to more than 2 lakh pages and includes 11,161 videos, 11,238 audio
clips, over two lakh images and 1,597 documents,” said the report.
Rejection of plea strange, surprising: Crime branch
“The digital evidence retrieved from the mobile phone used by Dileep’s the brother-in-law contains some fresh facts about the involvement of other accused persons. The facts corroborate the statement of the director that obscene visuals were in the possession of the accused. This too requires time for verification,” the crime branch said.
In a major embarrassment to the trial court, the crime branch report said the memory card of the assault visuals that had been in the safe custody of trial, had been accessed and its hash value changed. “The last access date changed from February 18, 2017, to December 13, 2018. A report on this was forwarded to the trial court judge by the FSL director, but was not disclosed to the prosecution until February this year, though the trial had been on and the forensic expert was examined in November 2021,” it said.
The crime branch said the prosecution sought a detailed examination of the memory card on April 4, but the trial court, to the prosecution’s knowledge, did not pass any order until May 26. “When the matter was taken up on May 26, the trial court judge said the prosecution’s request had been rejected on May 9. Curiously, the order was forwarded through ordinary post on May 17 to the Nedumbassery SHO, instead of sending it to the investigating officer directly,” said the report, which termed the judge’s rejection of the plea “very strange and surprising.” The report said the voice clip of Dileep and his associates retrieved from the phones had been identified by various witnesses, including actor Manju Warrier, Dileep’s ex-wife.
Agency says
■ Digital data received from phone of Dileep’s brother helped conclude that actor is in possession of either the original memory card having the visuals or its copy
■ Dileep’s friend Sarath had a tab containing the visuals. He handed it over to Dileep who watched it with others