In a further investigation into the 2017 female actor abduction and sexual assault case, the Kerala Crime branch has summoned cyber expert Sai Sankar for questioning. Sankar is said to have deleted the data from actor Dileep‘s mobile phones.
He has been directed to appear before the Aluva police club on Monday afternoon for the interrogation. It may be noted that Dileep is currently under trial as the chief conspirator behind the female actor abduction and sexual assault. He is also being investigated for allegedly plotting to kill officers involved in that case.
Earlier, according to HC order, Dileep and the other accused had submitted their mobile phones as part of the probe in the conspiracy to murder case. The crime branch had stated that data in phones had been tampered with.
Later, it was found that cyber expert Sankar had cleared data from the phones in question. He had reportedly gone to the house of Dileep’s lawyer and had accessed Wi-Fi from there as well as the hotels he had stayed at.
It was said that he was booked as the seventh accused in the conspiracy to the murder case. On April 8, he surrendered to the crime branch and confessed to helping the actor in tampering with evidence.
After being released on bail, in an exclusive interview with a media outlet, he noted that he had given his statements to the police officials.
In his confession, Sankar said, “Dileep had told me what needed to be deleted from the phones in the presence of his counsel. He was present with me for around four to five hours. He said that during a forensic examination, only the data we show should be made visible and the main evidence should not be found. They asked me to remove around 300 to 400 documents. I did not use the shredding method to remove the information. Instead, I loaded junk data. First, we removed the original data and then on top of it, we loaded unimportant data.”
He added that the 12 chats retrieved by the forensic team were fake and the original chats cannot be recovered. “But it is possible for me to retrieve it. On April 11, his confidential statements were documented before the First Class Judicial Magistrate Court II on Monday.
At this juncture, the crime branch has once again sent a notice to Sankar directing him to appear for another interrogation.
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Meanwhile, the police are reportedly set to question court employees regarding the alleged leak of the visuals of the sexual assault of the female Malayalam actor who was abducted and assaulted in 2017.
On the other hand, the interrogation of Dileep’s wife Kavya Madhavan which was supposed to take place on Wednesday was deferred over confusion on where she should be questioned. Dileep’s brother Anoop and brother-in-law Sooraj have informed the crime branch that they are ready to appear for interrogation on any day.