A week after some accused in a murder case lodged in the district jail here made Facebook postings using sophisticated mobile phones, eight more cellphones were recovered from the jail on Tuesday, police said.

Police recovered seven cellphones when the septic tank in the jail was opened as part of searching this evening, a top police official told PTI. Earlier, in the morning, jail staff found a base model cellphone from near the garden in the jail complex. On December 7, a mobile phone without battery and SIM card was recovered from a pipe connecting the septic tank in the jail. The mobile was recovered during repairs to a pipe in a cell block.

Police decided to search the septic tank after they did not find any cellphones during their searches using non-linear junction detectors, capable of detecting even switched-off cellphones yesterday. In a serious violation of prison rules, some of the accused in the Chandrasekharan murder case had made Facebook postings using their mobile phones.

The matter was exposed through a sting operation by a TV channel, which also beamed photographs purportedly posted on Facebook by some of the key accused in the case lodged in the prison as undertrials. Chandrasekharan, who floated his own outfit RMP after quitting CPM, was hacked to death in May 2012 near his native village Onchiyam. Many of the accused in the case are local CPM workers, apart from hired goons.

Home Minister Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan had admitted the incident was a breach of prison rules and constituted a three-member committee to probe it. The matter also saw Kerala DGP (Prisons) Alexander Jacob removed from his post for his controversial remarks in the case. Jacob had said the timing of the expose of prison rule violations appeared to have been made with the intention of prejudicing the judgement, expected to be delivered by the court this month-end.

His justification for the meeting of one of the accused, a local CPM worker, with his wife and MLA K K Lathika while being taken to hospital a few weeks back had also found serious fault with the government and the ruling party.