Crucial WhatsApp messages, images and other data deleted from Sonali Phogat’s iPhone?

PANAJI: According to reliable Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) sources, crucial WhatsApp messages, images, photographs and other data was deleted from actor and politician Sonali Phogat’s iPhone, which the central investigating agency took custody of from the Goa police last week.

It is not known how the data came to be deleted and who was responsible for it, but the finger of suspicion points at her PA Sudhir Sangwan and his associate Sukhwinder Singh who are now in judicial custody.

Earlier, CBI sources had told ABP News that Phogat’s phone might hold important clues concerning the death of the 41-year-old who passed away in Anjuna on August 23, allegedly due to a drug overdose, and the Central Agency was very keen on recovering all the data on the electronic device as it could hold clues and hints to the incidents during the last few days of her life.

ALSO READ: CBI sends Sonali Phogat’s iPhone for forensic analysis and data recovery

However, a preliminary investigation into the electronic device by the Central Agency has revealed that huge chunks of data, including WhatsApp messages, message logs, message archives, SMS messages, images and other data has been deleted from the phone, possibly on the day she passed away. Several APPs – including some online payment wallets and software, which were on the iPhone were uninstalled and the app data deleted.

The CBI team probing the death of Sonali Phogat has sent her iPhone for digital forensic analysis, digital integrity audit and data recovery, with instructions to recover all deleted data for the last several months, since the time she began using the device.

Data recovery experts can mostly recover deleted files and data from electronic devices, unless the device storage area was overwritten with other junk data or the device was physically damaged.

When files are deleted from a hard disk, pen drive, memory card or any other storage device, the data is not actually or physically deleted, but only “marked” as deleted.

Experts can undelete the data and recover 99 per cent of it, if the device was not tampered with or physically damaged.

However, those with in-depth knowledge of data recovery software and techniques would first format the data storage space, wipe it clean and then overwrite the deleted space with new junk data, so that all the old bits and bytes get overwritten by the junk stuff or junk files and cannot be recovered.

Sophisticated software used by the FBI and other agencies like the Israeli Mossad are able to undelete and recover several overwrite attempts, but this is still limited and once overwritten several times, the original data cannot be recovered.

After Phogat’s family demanded a CBI probe, the case was handed over and the agency took over the case from the Goa Police on September 15.

When the CBI took custody of Phogat’s iPhone and asked the Goa Police for the password of Phogat’s iPhone, the Goa police had no clue about the password, ABP News had reported.