The Kerala High Court, on Monday, July 25, adjourned the hearing of the plea filed by the survivor in the Kerala actor sexual assault case to July 31. The survivor had earlier sought an independent investigation into the change of hash value of the memory card in which the assault visuals were stored. Actor Dileep, the eighth accused and alleged to be the mastermind behind the assault, opposed the plea and said that it was an attempt to prolong the trial.
Justice K Babu, who was hearing the matter, questioned why Dileep was worried over the survivor’s petition seeking an independent investigation into the matter. In response, the actor informed the court that there was no need to conduct an independent probe, as it was an attempt to protract the trial.
Last year, a forensic report stated that the memory card containing the visuals of the assault was last accessed in December 2018, a year after actor Dileep was allowed to watch the visuals in court. The forensic report also said that the memory card was tampered with. They found that the hash value of the memory card was changed. The hash value of any digital file is unique to it, and the change of a hash value would mean that the file has been modified, tampered with, or completely replaced. However, there is no way to know who accessed it or when. The survivor, expressing concern over this, sought a probe into the matter.