Thiruvananthapuram: Judicial first class magistrate-III has directed police to hand over the copy of surveillance camera visuals of the accident that claimed the life of journalist K M Basheer to the two accused in the case, IAS officer Sriram Venkitaraman and his friend Wafa Firoze.
The magistrate gave the direction after receiving a report from forensic expert said there was no harm in handing over the copy of the visuals.
Venkitaraman and Firoze had approached the court seeking copy of the two DVDs containing surveillance camera visuals submitted before the Crime Branch investigation team as evidence in the case. The prosecution had opposed their plea citing that the hash value (a factor that determines the integrity of a digital data) will be affected. The court too had raised concern that if the hash value were to be affected, the accused could make a claim before the trial court that the copies of the evidence provided to them were tampered with.
The magistrate had then directed Crime Branch SP A Shanavas, who is leading the investigation team, to get a report from forensic director in this regard. The forensic director furnished the report citing that the hash value will not be affected.
Meanwhile, magistrate A Aneesa has also held that the cloned copies will be taken only after the visuals are screened before the court in the presence of forensic experts. She has directed cyber police DSP to appear before the court on February 15 for the screening. It was on August 3, 2019, K M Basheer was knocked down by a car that was allegedly driven by Venkitaraman. The Crime Branch had stated in the chargesheet that there was a deliberate attempt from the part of Venkitaraman to destroy the evidence in the case.