Court orders underwater search for man two years after death

CHENNAI: With the mystery shrouding the death of Satish Kumar, son of advocate R Sankarasubbu, continuing for more than two years now, the special investigation team (SIT) probing the riddle is all set to go to the bottom of the issue, quite literally.
On Tuesday, the SIT informed a full bench of the Madras high court that it wanted to engage the services of a private firm specializing in underwater search to look for evidence under the ICF Lake, from where Satish's body was fished out on June 7, 2011.
The SIT said the T Nagar-based private firm - Frogman Underwater Associates - had quoted Rs 8.72 lakh for the deep search. On June 7, the DGP had addressed a letter to the home secretary for sanction of the amount at the earliest.
When the state public prosecutor S Shanmugavelayutham said steps would be taken for an early sanction of the amount, the bench comprising Justice R Banumathi, Justice P R Shivakumar and Justice S Nagamuthu said: "It would be in order if the government sanction the amount for underwater search at an early date, preferably within a period of two weeks from today."
The SIT also informed the court that it had called for tower dump details of the victim's mobile phone.
(According to Cyber crime Review, a tower dump allows police to request the phone numbers of all phones that connected to a specific tower within a given period of time. Beyond this list, law enforcement could also request customer information, allowing them to match the cell numbers with a specific customer's name, address and other account information).
The bench later adjourned the case to September 13 for further hearing.
A week after Satish Kumar's body was found on June 7, 2011 the case was entrusted to the CBI. The CBI filed status reports periodically. After constituting the SIT at the instance of Sankarasubbu and other Bar leaders, the court restrained the CBI from filing the chargesheet.