Kochi: The special investigation team (SIT) in charge of the actress assault case says the additional charge sheet on the conspiracy angle will be submitted before the Angamaly First Class Judicial Magistrate Court soon. The SIT rejected the allegation that police are deliberately delaying the charge sheet to let actor Dileep, arrested for plotting the crime, get out on bail.
Dileep is entitled to seek bail if the charge sheet is delayed beyond 90 days. Dileep completes 90 days in jail on October 8.
Allegations have been aired that police are under pressure to delay the charge sheet so that Dileep gets a way out, which otherwise looks rather impossible. Dileep has been charged with plotting gang rape which is entitled to life term imprisonment. The actor is likely to be made the second accused.
The police team has sought legal opinion for filing the charge sheet in the case without adducing the primary evidence, a mobile phone allegedly used to capture the victim's objectionable visuals, which has not been retrieved yet.
The obscene pictures of the actress were shot on the phone after she was waylaid and kidnapped in Kochi on February 17. The police have claimed that the conspiracy to abduct and assault the actress in a moving car as well as film the act was hatched by Dileep.
Despite desperate and extensive searches, the investigating team has failed to recover the mobile phone so far. During initial interrogation, main accused Sunil Kumar aka Pulsar Suni had told the officers that he threw the phone into the backwaters from the Goshree bridge in Kochi.
Marathon grilling of the other accused, advocate Pratheesh Chacko, to whom Suni had allegedly handed over the mobile phone, adovate Raju Joseph, who revealed to the cops that the devise was destroyed, and actor Dileep, accused of conspiring in the case, did not yield any result.
Interrogations of Dileep's wife and actress Kavya Madhavan and his friend and filmmaker Nadhirsha also failed to bring out any leads in this direction.
The investigating team believes that the primary evidence was hidden or destroyed by the accused with an intention to mislead the investigation and weaken the prosecution's case.
It is learnt that the police are exploring the option to file the chargesheet linking the accused to the case by relying upon witnesses' statements as well as confessional statements of the accused and other oral, documentary and scientific evidence.