Kochi: The Aluva Judicial First Class Magistrate Court on Saturday remanded key accused Sunil Kumar Surendran aka ‘Pulsar’ Suni and another accused V. P. Vijesh to police custody till March 5. The court accepted the special investigation team’s plea that it was vital for the probe into the conspiracy angle in the actor abduction and sexual assault case. But it didn’t consider the public prosecutor's plea for a polygraph test on the duo. Later, an identification parade of the four others – Manikandan, Martin, Salim and Pradeep - was successfully held at the Aluva sub-jail.
While Tenny, a junior of high-profile criminal lawyer B. A. Aloor, appeared for Suni, E. C. Paulose argued the case of Vijesh. The police, in its petition, appraised the court that Suni’s custody would be required to bring out the conspiracy behind the incident, recover his mobile phone with memory card and also to take him to places like Coimbatore to complete evidence collection. “The victim arrived around 3 pm and identified all the four. After that she went to the Aluva police club to give further statements before the investigation team,” police said.
The parade was held in the presence of the Judicial First Class Magistrate, Aluva, who would be filing a report on the same to the Judicial First Class Magistrate, Angamaly. Meanwhile, the police raided a house at Ponnurunni which Suni and his aides visited on February 17 night, hours after committing the crime. The cops seized a smartphone, one i-pad and two memory cards and sent the same for a detailed test.
“The house owner is a friend of Suni. But the main accused had told his interrogators that on the day his friend didn’t respond to his call, and he had to return empty-handed after 20 minutes. We’d taken him into custody for questioning. The seized materials, prima-facie, don’t seem to have any connection with the case,” said a senior police officer.
Sources said the investigators would soon question three women with whom Suni had reportedly maintained a close relationship. A has gone to Coimbatore in search of a person who allegedly handed over Suni a mobile phone and arranged SIM card on a fake address. Cops suspect this unidentified person of helping Suni to skip the police net till his arrest from a courtroom while trying to surrender. "We suspect Suni would have handed over the memory card to him. However, he is yet to be held," they said.
