Sharma’s CDs still critical to probe: SIT

Officials of the special investigation team (SIT) said on Thursday that they were depending heavily on the phone call data submitted on CDs by IPS officer Rahul Sharma, in their investigation of the 2002 riots. They also said that they were not bothered by the report of the Directorate of Forensic Science (DFS) which said that the hard disk of Sharma’s computer did not contain any of the phone data contained on the CDs.

SIT officials were responding to the report published in DNA in which questions had been raised about the SIT’s intentions in sending Sharma’s computer to the DFS to find out whether his computer’s hard disk contained any phone call data. Sharma had already told the SIT that there was almost no chance of any phone data being found on his computer’s hard disk because it had been formatted several times since 2002.

Clarifying the SIT’s stand on the issue, a member of the probe team said that the hard disk had been sent for forensic testing to plug all legal loopholes. “The phone call data CDs submitted by Rahul Sharma had to be sent for forensic verification so that, during the trial of riot cases, it does not appear that the data contained on the CDs is not authentic,” an official said.

Former DGP RB Sreekumar, however, said that it was absurd to send a computer’s hard disk for forensic verification when the officer had already supplied the phone call data on CDs. “There was no need to send the computer’s hard disk for forensic testing,” Sreekumar told DNA. “In fact, the very act of sending the hard disk for forensic testing raises doubts about the sender’s intentions as it will only give defence lawyers a chance to question the authenticity of the phone data CDs.”

Sreekumar further said that, instead of sending the disks for forensic verification, the SIT should have conducted an exhaustive investigation on the basis of the phone call data.

 (With inputs from Nikunj Soni)