New Delhi: Sleuths of the Delhi police crime branch probing the Shivani Bhatnagar murder case may not have been able to build their case had it not been for a mobile phone, which played a significant role through the sequence of events in the crime.

The Mobile phone number 9811008825 of the ESSAR service, was purchased by one of the accused Sri Bhagwan from Nirmal Communications here in November 1998 and remained with him till January 23, 1999 on which day the 'Indian Express' scribe was allegedly murdered, according to the police chargesheet.

While in his possession, it was used by prime accused R K Sharma to allegedly plan the conspiracy to eliminate Shivani.

Subsequently, the equipment was passed on to another co-accused Satya Prakash, who in turn destroyed the SIM card to ensure that calls made prior to, during and after the crime were not traced. Prakash was later charged under Section 201 of the Indian Penal Code for destroying evidence, it alleged.

Satya Prakash used it with a SIM card bearing number 9811048912 during the period March 4 to July 5, 1999 after which it reached Pradeep Sharma, who allegedly executed the killing.

However, wisdom did not prevail on Pradeep to destroy the handset, which he started using with a new number 9811046572 and used it till September 9, 1999.

Police, badly needing to effect the recovery, finally placed a request with service providers Airtel, who in turn located the handset by listening to its International Mobile Equipment Identification (IMEI) number.

They found that the equipment was being used by one Harish Chand, with a different mobile number.

PTI