The Kerala High Court on Tuesday dismissed actor Dileep's petition seeking visuals of the actress abduction and assault case. This comes as a major setback for the actor who is one of the eight accused in the case.
The HC said that the visuals cannot be handed over to the actor as this would affect the victim's privacy. Dileep, who said he had the right to access all evidence in the case, had submitted 11 petitions seeking the assault visuals. The state government had however told the high court that these were Dileep's attempts at delaying the case trial. An affidavit filed by the Kerala governemnt earlier stated that Dileep's demand for CBI probe into the sensational case is aimed at hindering the trial. An accused has no right to demand a probe by a particular agency, it added.
On February 17, 2017, a leading actress was brutally assaulted by thugs in a moving car in Kochi.
According to prosecution, the conspiracy to assault the actress had been first hatched in 2013 with Dileep forcing Sunil Kumar aka Pulsar Suni, the key accused in the case, to execute his plan.
Sunil, who was promised Rs 1.5 crore to commit the crime, had made at least five unsuccessful attempts to abduct the actress and capture her objectionable images and video footage as directed by Dileep, the police had stated in its report. They could not execute the plan because of the presence of the actress's father, who used to accompany her to the sets. However, following the actress's father's death on September 24, 2015, Dileep allegedly persuaded Suni to carry out the plan.
The chargesheet says Dileep, the eighth accused, told Pulsar Suni, that he wanted to blackmail the actress with videotaped visuals so that she remains under his command even after her imminent marriage.
Suni was asked to record her intimate visuals with different people, the chargesheet says. He was also instructed to make sure that the ring on her finger was clearly visible in the videos. The police suspect that Dileep had assumed that she was wearing her betrothal ring.
Main accused Pulsar Suni and his gang of criminals, who waylaid the actress and assaulted her in the car, were apprehended soon after the crime.
Almost six months after the crime, the police arrested Dileep on July 10, 2017. Dileep's second wife, Kavya Madhavan, was also under police scanner and was quizzed by ADGP B. Sandhya.
After 85 days in prison, Dileep was granted bail on October 3. In November, the special investigation team (SIT) submitted a subsidiary chargesheet naming Dileep as the eighth accused. More importantly, the chargesheet named Dileep's former wife Manju Warrier as a witness with the police claiming that Dileep held a grudge against the victim for wrecking his marriage with Manju.
-with inputs from Onmanorama