Cops told to check data on Mugilan’s phone

On Monday, the CB-CID filed a status report before the bench hearing a petition about the disappearance of the activist since February 15 that they have not been able to make any breakthrough despite deploying 17 teams that have quizzed 251 witnesses including his family members and friends.

Incidentally, the initial claim by the police that Mugilan had left the Egmore Station and had not returned has been withdrawn. Now, they have claimed that video footage revealed that the missing activist had left the station but returned after a while, which indicates that he could have boarded the train to Madurai.

A division bench comprising Justice M Sathyanarayanan and Justice M Nirmal Kumar, before whom a status report running to eight pages was filed, said, "Additional Public Prosecutor undertakes to do the needful with regards to voice calls and other messages that emanated from the phone numbers used by Mugilan. The same would be intimated in the status report to be filed in the next date of hearing on April 8, including inward and outward messages from Mugilan's number on social media."

The direction to check the messages sent and received by Mugilan came following submission from petitioner Henri Tiphagne’s counsel Sudha Ramalingam that Mugilan had three phone numbers though the call records of only two were on record. She also noted that a message was sent from his Facebook account, which has not been checked despite it offering scope of ascertaining the location from where the message was sent.

"In the status report filed by CB-CID it is disclosed among other things that 17 teams headed by DSPs has been constituted to assist investigation in the case. So far 251 witnesses including friends and associates of the missing activist have been examined and the investigation is also being done in respect of the mobile number of the detenue,” the bench noted.

The petitioner had contended in the habeas corpus petition that Mugilan, the coordinator of Tamil Nadu Environment Protection Movement, had gone missing after he held a press conference in Chennai and released his finding on the reason behind the May 22, 2018, Thoothukudi firing in which 13 persons who were protesting against the Sterlite Copper unit were killed.