Kerala HC asks actor Dileep, his aides to handover 6 mobiles for probe

Kochi, Jan 29 (IANS) There were anxious moments for actor Dileep in a special sitting of the Kerala High Court on Saturday and at the end of the hearing, the court speaking tough, asked the actor and his aides to handover six mobile phones to the Crime Branch police probe team. The Crime Branch is probing the fresh case in which the actor is alleged to have conspired to do away with the investigating officers in the actress abduction case.

The court directed the actor and others to hand over the 6 mobile phones in a sealed cover to the court on Monday at 10.15 a.m.

The prosecution counsel was adamant that there were 7 mobile phones used by Dileep (4), his brother Anoop (2), and his brother-in-law's one mobile.

But Dileep said he does not have a fourth mobile and hence the court came down to 6 mobiles, even as the prosecution was arguing that he has a fourth one and started moves to come up with evidence to prove its point.

On Friday, the probe team moved a fresh application which was supplementary to their original petition.

In their petition, they said the actor had conspired to do away with the officials probing the case and it was after three days of questioning of the actor and his aides, that the fresh application was moved and after hearing the petition, the court posted the matter for Saturday, when the court came out with this order, which is clearly seen as a huge setback to Dileep.

On Saturday in the court, there were heated debates between the counsel of Dileep and prosecution, when the latter pointed out that no accused would have got so much consideration. Dileep's counsel shot back by saying all these new things that are coming up is nothing but to divert attention as all these have been cooked up, when the trial in the actress abduction case was in its last leg.

The case and the fortunes for Dileep took a turn for the worse ever since Balachandrakumar, a director, surfaced and spilled the beans that Dileep was conspiring to do away with the investigating officers and he had seen the visuals of the attack undertaken by the kidnapper of the actress in a vehicle way back in 2017, which is now referred to as the actress abduction case, in which Dileep is presently out on bail after cooling his heels in a jail for two months then.

According to Dileep, these phones have been handed over to a forensic firm in Mumbai to retrieve the important details of the conversation that they had with Balachandrakumar and wanted time till Tuesday morning to get it back, but the court insisted that they should be handed over on Monday only.

Counsel for the actor, however, pointed that his phone contains private conversations with his first wife (actress Manju Warrier) and others and the prosecution might infringe on his privacy by giving out his personal talks with others also.

Apart from Dileep, his brother Anoop, brother-in-law Sooraj, aide Appu alias Krishnadas, and close friend Byju Chengamanad are those who were interrogated for 33 hours early this week over three days.

Popular because of the comic characters he plays on screen, Dileep has been in the news for the wrong reasons after a frontline South Indian heroine complained that she had been abducted and sexually assaulted by a gang of goons in 2017 and certain scenes were filmed to blackmail her.

After the main accused Sunil was arrested and questioned, the prosecution charged Dileep with being the main conspirator in the case and he was arrested. He spent two months in prison before getting bail and the trial has been going on.