THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The second phone of M Sivasankar, former principal secretary of the chief minister who has been arrested over the gold smuggling case, was finally found out by probe team. Cyberteam of central probe agencies has found out the phone. The former bureaucrat has earlier said that he had only one phone. However, when the probe agencies traced down the source of Whatsapp messages between Sivasankar and Swapna Siresh, they found out that Sivasankar’s statement is a lie and he has a second phone. Prone agencies have also turned on efforts to find out the third phone of the former principal secretary.

Swapna has testified before the probe agencies that Sivasankar has two more cell numbers and most of the communication between then held through Whatsapp calls. The second phone was discovered on the raids based on Swapna’s testimony. The probe team has also started efforts to retrieve the digital evidence from this phone. Sivasankar will be grilled again on the basis of evidence received from this phone.

Evidence received from the second phone will be also shared with NIA. In order to impose UAPA charges on Sivasankar NIA has sought legal opinion. When Swapna and her gang came under the custody of customs, Sivasankar handed over the second phone secretly to his relative and when the first phone was discovered by probe officials all records were already removed from it but as the probe team retrieved the deleted phone records with the help of cyber experts from C-DAC, crucial details of links between Sivasankar and accused in gold smuggling case finally came to light. The probe team suspects that Sivasankar might have removed all call records from the second phone also.

The probe team has received new leads on Sivasankar when they interrogated Swapna and Sarith together on Sunday. Sources say both the accused has revealed crucial information on Sivasankar’s involvement in the case. Whereas Sivasankar has denied all statements of other accused in the case and probe officials also say that he is not cooperating with the investigation.