MiD DAY had reported that the Sister Abhaya case narco CD had been paused to allow the murder accused to visit the bathroom. The CBI now confirms it, and says the footage wasn't manipulated

After six days of investigation, the CBI said narco sleuths had not tampered with footage in the Sister Abhaya case footage.

Nandakumar Nair, deputy superintendent of police, CBI, submitted a report to the chief judicial magistrate of Ernakulam saying the camera had been paused, but the footage had not been manipulated.

Nair said his team had questioned Dr S Malini, who conducted the narco test at the Forensic Science Laboratory, Bangalore, Dr Srikantamurthy T M, professor, Bangalore Medical College, N Krishnaveni, technician, and Praveen B, scientific assistant, from June 29 to July 4. The last three were present at the time of the narco test.

Confiscated

The CBI had confiscated the computer from which the narco reports had been prepared.

Nair said no video cassettes existed of the questioning of the three accused of Sister Abhaya's murder in 1992. Abhaya stumbled on two priests and a nun having sex inside a convent in the Kerala town of Kottayam, and they allegedly killed her.

Dr S Malini reportedly told his team that the original CD was given to the CBI's Delhi unit, investigating the case then.

Nair requested the court to grant him more time to examine the officials of C-DIT at Trivandrum, who had said the CDs had been manipulated and edited.