The revelations made by the late director Balachandra Kumar were a key factor in turning the 2017 actress abduction and sexual assault case against Mollywood actor Dileep—the eighth accused in the case.
The survivor, a popular film actress at the time, was allegedly sexually assaulted in a moving car, and Dileep is accused of hatching the criminal conspiracy behind the crime—the verdict of which will be delivered on Monday.
Once a close friend of Dileep, in 2021, he accused the actor of possessing visuals of the alleged sexual assault, which the actor had watched at 'Padmasarovaram', the latter's house in Aluva.
Kumar added in his testimony that a VIP had brought the footage to the house.
He also claimed that he had personally seen Dileep, as well as the actor's relatives—his brother Anoop and his brother-in-law Suraj—watching it.
Another part of Dileep's alleged plan, in which they were also involved, was to harm five officials, including Deputy SP Baiju Paulose, who was investigating the case.
"I saw on TV that the police had arrested Pulsar Suni in the actress attack case. When I called Dileep and asked about it, he lied and said he didn't know," Balachandra Kumar had said at the time.
However, something changed after Dileep became the eighth accused in the case.
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Kumar mentioned that Dileep had called him home, and asked him not to reveal that the embattled actor had met Sunil N.S. (Pulsar Suni), the prime accused in the case.
"Even Kavya Madhavan waited the whole time, even skipping meals, to get assurance from me that I will not talk about Dileep’s meeting with Suni in public," he alleged.
Kumar, whose crucial testimony also involved evidence that he had handed over to the police at the time (a series of audio clips), died in December last year, owing to health-related complications. He was 52.
