Amid allegations of the police dragging their feet in the case, concerns have been raised about the shortcomings on the part of the police in probing the sensational Kochi blackmailing case.
Even after a year into the probe, the police are yet to file a charge sheet against the accused persons arrested in this connection. They attribute the probe moving at a snail’s pace to a delay in receiving a forensic analysis report of the material evidences.
“The investigation is almost complete and the only thing left to be included in the report is a verification reports of the laptops and CDs seized from the accused’’, explained Shiju P.S. Circle Inspector of Police, Ernakulam North.
An earlier attempt by the police to verify the credibility of footage in the CDs failed owing to some technical issues associated with the sterile disk capacity. Following this, they had to be returned and sent for another round of verification, he added.
Replying to this, the Forensic authorities said they had no idea about the urgency of the case. “We have files pending here from the year 2012 and if it was so urgent for them, they could have requested us to give the test result on a priority basis’’, said KP Jayakumar, Director, Forensic Science Laboratory in Thiruvanathapuram.
Meanwhile, official sources alleged the police of deliberately botching up the probe as it spelt trouble for a senior official having close links with some of the accused. “There are quite a few discrepancies in how the case has been handled so far and an internal probe is on against one of the officials, who had earlier handled it’’, they said.
The case pertains to the alleged honey-trapping of moneyed businessmen by a racket that recorded intimate and private personal acts of theirs and extorted money using them. In July last year, the police arrested its members which included two women- Bindhiya Thomas and Ruksana. Other persons arrested in this connection were identified as Sanilan, Prajeesh alias Thomas Jacob and Jayachadran.
Their operation came to light following the suicide of Raveendran, a Venjaramoodu native, who had been allegedly trapped by the racket.
The case attained a new dimension after the accused had named a couple of political leaders behind the case.
