How did Dileep’s brother have notes on assault visuals? Mystery deepens

On December 15, 2017, Dileep, the alleged mastermind of the sexual assault of an actor in Kerala, was allowed to watch the visuals of the attack at the chamber of the Angamaly First Class Magistrate. There were a few others in the room with him and the Magistrate: his advocates, and Prasoon Benny A, who was the Additional Public Prosecutor (APP) at the Angamaly court at the time. Prasoon in a statement has now said that Dileep’s counsel had neither taken down detailed notes about the visuals nor were they given the file names. The statement acquires prominence, in light of a recent discovery by the police that Dileep’s brother Anoop had photos containing detailed notes including moment-by-moment commentary about the visuals, which he claimed were taken from the counsel’s office.

Prasoon’s statement was submitted by the police as directed by the High Court of Kerala. He had served as APP at the Angamaly court between March 4, 2017 and July 2018. A few weeks after the final report in the case was submitted at the court, the magistrate had asked Prasoon to be present with the accused actor Dileep and his counsel while the visuals were shown to them, he writes in his statement.

“When I entered the chamber, besides the magistrate, senior advocate Raman Pillai sir, advocate Philip TVarghese and Dileep, who is the 8th accused in the case were present. The magistrate said that the counsel of the 8th accused has requested that they be allowed to view the visuals of sexual assault of the petitioner in the case and I should be present when it is done. There were no written directions regarding this,” Prasoon writes.

The counsel and Prasoon were on chairs at the magistrate’s chamber while Dileep stood some distance away besides them, he says. The visuals – which were then in the custody of the magistrate – were then shown to the others, on the magistrate’s laptop. The counsel – Raman Pillai and Philip – listened to the sound of the visuals using headsets while Prasoon played each of the video clips (there were eight in all) as directed by Philip. At one point, he was asked to listen to check the clarity and he heard a female voice, Prasoon says.

“At one point they said the sound was not clear and asked me to listen to the recording. I listened to it using the headset. I remember hearing a female voice resembling 'padamukalilekku'. The clarity of the sound was low. They watched the visuals repeatedly for an hour,” the APP writes.

Prasoon didn’t reveal the file names to them, and neither did he think it possible for the advocates to write down the file names or detailed notes of the visuals, he states. “It was not possible for them to write down the file names without my disclosure. They did not make detailed notes of conversations in the visuals or other details. They did not write down the file name of each clip and detailed notes of its visual content. I did not pay attention to whether Dileep watched the visuals on that day.”

He also adds that the advocate of the eighth accused (Dileep) was “shown the visuals of the petitioner being assaulted only once”.

After that, “the case was committed to the district court in 2018 February,” Prasoon says. 

(With inputs from Binu Karunakaran)