In yet another twist to the Dileep conspiracy case, the Kerala Crime Branch told a magistrate court in Aluva that before the actor handed over his phone for investigation, 12 chats were intentionally deleted from it, including ones with a prominent Malayalam actor. According to the CB, most of the 12 numbers are registered in Dubai, and some belong to businessmen. Further, among the deleted chats are those with Dileep’s wife Kavya Madhavan and his brother-in-law Sooraj. The Crime Branch had accused Dileep and others of conspiring to kill the officers investigating the 2017 actor assault case, in which he is an accused.
As per reports, the CB submitted that the deleted chats could have been critical evidence in the conspiracy case investigation, and that the motive behind deleting them is not yet known. The CB report further says that deleting the chats beyond recovery was a deliberate attempt to subvert the investigation.
The CB also submitted that the chats were deleted with the help of cyber expert Sai Shankar on January 30. On March 17, the Crime Branch raided six locations linked with Sai Shankar, and found an iMac laptop among other electronic items. Upon further examination, it was found that the iMac, which belongs to Sai Shankar’s wife, was used to delete data from Dileep’s phone on January 29, before Dileep’s iPhone and the phones of others were sent for forensic examination by the judicial magistrate.
According to news reports, Sai Shankar was seen at the office of advocate Raman Pillai and it was here that the data was allegedly deleted. On March 21, he moved the Kerala High Court, seeking pre-arrest bail. He also alleged that officers investigating the case had threatened to implicate his wife in false cases, and sought pre-arrest bail on the suspicion that he would be tortured in police custody. In his bail plea, Sai Shankar denied all allegations of deleting the data. He however added that even if the allegations were true, he could only be charged under Section 201 of the Indian Penal Code for destroying evidence, a bailable offence.