The vigilance unit of the Kerala High Court has launched a probe to determine if the visuals in the actor assault case were illegally accessed by people who were not authorised to do so. This comes following instructions from the Chief Justice of Kerala High Court S Manikumar. The probe was launched on Monday, February 14. According to reports, the Registrar of Vigilance wing has ordered the investigation and Deputy Superintendent of Police Joseph Saju is in charge of the investigation.
The survivor has written to the Prime Minister, President, Supreme Court, Kerala High Court and Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, saying that she was concerned about certain new revelations regarding the visuals of the attack. Citing news reports suggesting that the visuals of the assault were accessed by someone at the Principal and Sessions Court of Ernakulam as alarming, the survivor has sought an investigation.
In February 2017, when the assault happened, the attackers had taped the crime on video, the visuals of which were recovered from the first accused in the case, Pulsar Suni, and submitted before the court in a sealed cover. The visuals in a phone memory card were handed over by Pulsar Suni to a lawyer named EC Poulose on February 18, a day after the crime. The lawyer then gave the memory card and other materials given by Pulsar Suni to the Aluva magistrate court on February 20. The Aluva magistrate court informed the police who then sent it to the forensic lab in Thiruvananthapuram on February 27. After forensic tests, the memory card and a pen drive to which these visuals were copied (as the memory card was sealed to stop tampering) were sent to the Angamaly Magistrate court on March 3; this court was hearing the case at that point. The visuals were in the Angamaly court till December 15. On December 15, Dileep and his lawyer were shown the visuals in the magistrate's chamber.
In March 2018, the pen drive and the sealed memory card were sent to the Principal and Sessions Court of Ernakulam. From March 15, 2018 to March 16, 2019, these visuals were at this district court in Ernakulam. According to a media report, during this period, the memory card was accessed once.
There are also allegations that some people abroad have accessed the visuals. The survivor wrote about her concerns regarding this blatant violation of her privacy, wondering how visuals, which were supposedly in a sealed packet with the court, could have been accessed by someone else.
The actor was sexually assaulted five years ago and the trial in the case, after several delays, began in November 2019. The survivor actor, who had stayed away from the limelight, posted a note on her social media page earlier this year, about her journey from being a victim to becoming a survivor.
The police had recently filed a fresh case against Dileep on charges of hatching a conspiracy to harm the police officials involved in the investigation, in which he was granted anticipatory bail by the Kerala HC. On Monday, he approached the HC with a plea to quash the second case against him. In his plea to quash the conspiracy case, Dileep has called the FIR against him "vindictive, ill-motivated, pre-determined and malafide", and executed with "oblique motives".