Fresh trouble has surfaced for actor Dileep, an accused in the 2017 actress abduction case, when the Crime Branch police team on Friday took into custody a computer expert, who is alleged to have "cleaned up" the his and his close aides' mobile phones.

Sai Sankar was taken into custody in a case which the probe team had registered, based on a disclosure made by Dileep's former friend and director Balachandrakumar that he had conspired to do away with the police officials who probed the 2017 actress abduction case.  While Dileep and his close aides got anticipatory bail in this case, the name of Sankar surfaced during the probe and the police is understood to have found out evidence against him and last week named as an accused also. Sankar's attempts to get anticipatory bail failed after the probe team had questioned him last month.

Incidentally, the probe team had to fight it out in the High Court to take into possession six mobile phones which were used by Dileep and his close aides and it was on scientific examination that it was found out the data in it was compromised.   This development comes at a time when the trial court, hearing the 2017 actress abduction case, asked the police official who probed the case to appear before it on Tuesday.

The court asked Deputy Superintendent of Police, Byju Poulose, to appear after it was alleged that he divulged certain information pertaining to the case to others - though the court had specifically forbidden this.

This case over the years has seen intense legal fight between the prosecution and defence counsel on numerous occasions and hence, neither of the parties are leaving anything to chance.