Police yet to trace Suni’s cell phone

Accused’s contradictory statements about the phone used to shoot the victim

‘Pulsar’ Suni, the main accused in a case of abduction of an actor in Kochi, being taken out for investigation at Alappuzha on Tuesday.

Even six days after they took ‘Pulsar’ Suni into custody in connection with the kidnap and assault of an actor here, the police are unable to recover a mobile phone allegedly used by him to shoot her video inside a car.

Official sources said recovery of the mobile phone was crucial to prove that the accused had intended to blackmail the victim using the video. “In case if the phone had been destroyed already, we will need to produce the evidence on that to back up the argument during the trial stage,” they held.

While admitting to shooting the actor’s footage using a white Samsung phone, Suni had been giving contradictory statements about the location of the phone. At one point, he told the interrogators that the phone was abandoned in a drain near Vennala and the police searched the area but to no avail.

Later, Suni changed his statement and said the phone was thrown into the Kochi backwaters from the Goshree bridge. Following this, the police, with the assistance of a diving team from the Navy, conducted a search underneath and around the bridge on Tuesday. The search, which lasted several hours, was called off late in the evening.

Officials also hinted at plans to turn Manikandan, who was arrested from Palakkad, as an approver.

Meanwhile, the police on Tuesday took Suni and Vijesh, another accused, for evidence collection in Alappuzha and recovered a memory card and SIM card used by Pulsar Suni from one of his friends residence near Ambalappuzha. The duo visited the house of Manu, a private bus driver in Kochi, on February 18, a day after the crime and abandoned the cards there.