A court in Kerala, on Monday, recorded the confidential statements of cyber expert Sai Shankar in the conspiracy to murder case filed against actor Dileep and his associates.
Dileep, who is currently facing trial as the chief conspirator in the 2017 female actor abduction and sexual assault case, is also being investigated for allegedly conspiring to kill the police officers who investigated the assault case. Recently, Sankar was booked as the seventh accused in the conspiracy to murder case, for tampering with the evidence on Dileep’s mobile phones.
Last week, he surrendered to the police and confessed to erasing data related to the actor assault case from Dileep’s phone. Claiming that there is a threat to his life, he requested the court to record his statement of confession. Following this, his confidential statements were documented before the First Class Judicial Magistrate Court II on Monday.
It is reported that the crime branch will turn Shankar into an approver in the case. A few lawyers who gave statements against Dileep’s counsel are also expected to be listed as approvers.
The crime branch has further issued a notice to Dileep’s lawyer B Raman Pillai and his associates, who were allegedly involved in tampering with the phones submitted as evidence, asking them to produce the gadgets used to erase the data as well as some digital documents taken from Sankar.
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After surrendering to the police, Sankar had alleged that all of the main devices he used for erasing the data – laptop, iMac, pendrive and hard disk – were taken into possession by Dileep’s counsel, Philip T Varghese. Dileep’s lawyers have now been asked to turn in these devices to the crime branch.
Meanwhile, the investigating officer in the assault case, Baiju Paulose, will appear before the trial court on Tuesday. The court has sought an explanation from him about the alleged leak of certain documents of the court proceedings to the media.