The inquiry into the alleged change of the hash value of the memory card containing visuals of the 2017 actor assault case has revealed that three persons, former Angamaly magistrate Leena Rasheed, the Ernakulam District Judge’s Personal Assistant(PA) Mahesh Mohan and trial court sheristadar Thajudeen accessed the memory card containing the visuals of the assault,while it was in the custody of different courts.
The details of the inquiry report were produced by the survivor before the Kerala High Court along with a petition to quash the report and order a court-monitored probe by a special investigation team of the police.
The Ernakulam District Sessions Judge conducted an inquiry into the alleged change of the hash value of the memory card containing visuals of the 2017 actor assault while it was in the court’s chest.
Mahesh was working in the Ernakulam Principal and Sessions Court where Kauser Edappagath was the judge while Thajudeen was sheristadar 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.
“A mere reading of the inquiry report indicated that several persons, including the judicial officers, had kept the memory card and the pen drive in their personal custody for months and years without any valid reasons,” the survivor alleged.
A forensic examination had earlier revealed that “the memory card was accessed on the night of January 9, 2018, and December 13, 2018, at 9.58pm and 10.58pm, respectively. The third access was on July 19, 2021, from 12.19pm to 12.54pm.”
Based on this, the Kerala High Court had directed the Ernakulam district and sessions judge to conduct a fact-finding inquiry into the alleged illegal access and file a report.
Citing the report, the survivor said the access on January 9, 2018, was by Leena. The survivor said Leena magistrate kept the pen drive and memory card in her custody for no justifiable judicial need or reasoning.
“It is evident from the report that misuse of the pen drive and memory card started from the JFMC, Angamaly, and I painfully realise that it was on the part of the then judicial officer,” said the survivor.
However, the findings in the report said “if it was accessed, it was by the magistrate.” The survivor alleged this was a deliberate attempt to protect the magistrate who kept the drive and card in her custody for “about one year.”
Stating that the inquiry was ordered to maintain the purity of the judicial system, the survivor said “But it is painfully submitted that it occasioned in demonstrating that there exists impure element which requires to be dealt with the iron fist of law.”
Last month , the survivor had approached the Kerala High Court to get a copy of the probe report after the trial court refused to provide it to her The High Court agreed to her plea and asked a copy to be handed over to her.
It was after getting the copy that the survivor has submitted the petition before 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. The survivor requested that a special team under the supervision of the High Court should conduct the probe
The noted south Indian actress was sexually assaulted in a moving 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.