A few phone call recordings, purportedly of Malayalam actor Dileep’s brother-in-law Sooraj, submitted to the court as proof April 8, Friday, indicate that Dileep and his lawyers have watched the visuals of the woman actor’s sexual assault several times. In a call recording, purportedly between Sooraj, and Dileep — the alleged mastermind in the 2017 actor assault case — Sooraj can be heard handed over the phone to someone from the lawyer’s team. In the subsequent conversation between this person from the lawyer's team and Dileep, the lawyer was heard describing a part of the assault visual vividly, and he also mentions that they have watched the visuals multiple times.
In the conversation, the lawyer and Sooraj also speak about an expert watching the visuals and framing questions. From this, one can assume that the phone call was sometime in between December 19, 2019, and January 17, 2020. It was on December 19, 2019, that Dileep, his lawyers, and a forensic expert were allowed to watch the visuals in front of the trial court judge, Judge Honey Verghese. This was after the Supreme Court declined Dileep permission to take a copy of the visuals, but instead allowed him to watch it under court supervision. Following this, the forensic expert sent a set of questions to the Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL), Chandigarh to verify the clip's authenticity.
In the phone call recordings submitted to the High Court, Sooraj and the lawyer can be heard referring to this set of questions.
The lawyer was also heard saying he accused the survivor of inappropriate behaviour loudly in front of the judge while watching the video, so that he can create doubts in the judge’s mind. He was also saying the judge's mind can be changed only through such tactics.
The crucial question that arises from this phone conversation is how did Dileep's lawyer claim they had watched the video several times.
Officially, Dileep was allowed to watch the visuals only twice. The first time was by the Angalamy Magistrate on December 15, 2017. Court proceedings, which TNM has a copy of, prove this. The second instance was two years later in December 2019.
A log of court proceedings from December 15, 2017.
This phone call, the police hope, will corroborate statements given by Balachandra Kumar, a film director and a close friend of Dileep in December 2021. Balachandra Kumar had alleged that Dileep and his acquaintances had watched the video of the sexual assault multiple times, and even at Dileep’s house in Aluva.
“I was supposed to go to Thiruvananthapuram that night. But Dileep wanted me to stay back as the discussions over our movie were not over. Dileep then asked (as if to everyone) ‘Pulsar Suniyude kroorakrithyangal kaanano? (Does anyone want to watch the cruelties of 'Pulsar' Suni?). The VIP who brought the video clips said that the audio was initially not clear, and that he had given it to a famous studio house in Kochi and boosted it twenty times. I heard what the male voice and the female voice in the video said quite clearly,” Balachandran told TNM in an interview in December.
Moreover, the police have maintained even in the chargesheet in the case that Dileep had the visuals with him.