Bengaluru: The Special Investigation Team (SIT) officials probing the murder of journalist and activist Gauri Lankesh have strongly denied media reports that they had sent the CCTV footage to a forensic science laboratory abroad to enhance the killer’s facial features.  Instead, they said, that the images were captured after the team spent hours on it.

“That we have sent the CCTV footage abroad is untrue,” a senior SIT official said, while admitting their disappointment that instead of the “good leads” they were expecting about the assailants after they released three sketches of two suspects on Saturday, they were ‘frustrated’ as all the callers were questioning the officials on how they came up with the sketches, especially the one with the ‘tilak’ on his face.

 An officer said, “We release photos, videos, and sketches to the public in the hope that they can help us in the investigation. But in this case, people are calling us to know how we prepared the sketches. We don’t understand why this is happening. It’s unfortunate that people are questioning us instead of trying to help us in catching the assailants.”