Who accessed the memory card containing visuals of the 2017 actor assault case of Kerala? An investigation by the Ernakulam District and Sessions court has found that Angamaly magistrate Leena Rasheed, Personal Assistant Mahesh Mohan of the Ernakulam District Judge and trial court official Tajudeen accessed the memory card while it was in the custody of different courts. Mahesh was working in the Ernakulam Principal and Sessions Court where Kauser Edappagath was the judge while Tajudeen was an official of the trial court under Justice Honey M Varghese. Incidentally it is Judge Honey Varghese who is in charge of the trial in the case and also conducted the probe into the illegal access of the memory card.
According to the probe report, Magistrate Leena Rasheed of the Angamaly court had kept the memory card in her personal custody assuming that it was allowed, explaining the access on January 9, 2018, at 9:58:41 pm. The December 13 incident of the same year is reportedly the result of Mahesh accessing the memory card using his phone on the instructions of the district judge, at 10:58:17 pm. Finally, on July 19, the trial court official Tajudeen had accessed the memory card which was to be kept in the court chest, the probe report says. This is supposed to have happened between 12:19 and 12:54 pm, and using a Vivo phone.
The probe into the leak started after an examination by the State Forensic Science Laboratory found that the memory card, which was supposed to be in the safe custody of courts, was found to have been illegally accessed thrice. This happened on January 9 and December 13 of 2018 and July 19, 2021. On the first occasion the device was in the custody of the Angamaly Magistrate court, and on the second occasion it was with the Ernakulam Principal and Sessions Court. In July 2021, the card was at the Ernakulam District and Sessions court where the trial of the actor assault is going on.
A few weeks earlier, the survivor had approached the High Court to get a copy of the probe report after the trial court refused to give her one. The High Court agreed to her plea and asked a copy to be handed over to her.
After getting her copy, the survivor submitted a new petition at the High Court against the way in which the investigation was conducted by Judge Honey Varghese. It was done without the help of the police and without hearing her side, as instructed by the High Court, the survivor said in her plea. She requested that a special team under the supervision of the High Court should conduct the probe.
This isn’t the first complaint against the judge. Two public prosecutors had resigned from their post citing interference from the judge during the trial.
The assault on the actor happened in a car in Kochi on February 17, 2017. While the police zeroed in on the main accused Pulsar Suni in a week, actor Dileep was accused as the mastermind of the crime after a few months. The trial which began in early 2020 is still going on.
