Popular Malayalam actor Dileep and five others have been booked for allegedly threatening to endanger the lives of police officers who investigated a 2017 sexual assault case in which the actor is one of the accused.
The police registered an FIR against Dileep, his brother Anoop, brother-in-law Suraj and three others days after filmmaker Balachandra Kumar released audio clips in which the actor openly threatened to harm the officers.
The filmmaker had told police that Dileep had openly said in his presence that five officers — director-general of police B. Sandhya, additional director-general of police S. Sreejith, superintendents of police A.V. George and S. Sudarshan, and deputy superintendent of police Baiju Paulose — would be dealt with.
The FIR was based on a complaint by Paulose.
Dileep had spent about three months in judicial custody after being arrested in the 2017 kidnap and sexual assault case.
The alleged conversation, whose audio recording was handed over to the police by Kumar, took place at Dileep’s home in Aluva, Ernakulam district, on November 15, 2017. It was over a month after Dileep was released from judicial custody in the case related to the kidnap and sexual assault of a popular actress for which Dileep allegedly hired a gang that filmed the entire sequence in a suspected move to blackmail her.
Kumar had recently come out with serious allegations against his old friend, Dileep, and released a few audio clips he claimed to have recorded during some of the conversations he was privy to. It is not known why he took so long to come out with the allegations.
The filmmaker had even claimed to have seen the key accused in the kidnap case, Sunil Kumar alias ‘Pulsar’ Suni (known for his craze for Pulsar motorbikes), at the actor’s home. According to his allegation, Dileep, who had always maintained he had no idea about Suni, had told Kumar not to disclose anything about the presence of the accused at his home.
The police booked them under IPC sections 116 (abetment of offence punishable with imprisonment), 118 (concealing design to commit offence punishable with death or imprisonment for life) 120B (criminal conspiracy) 506 (criminal intimidation) and 34 (common intention).
Dileep, Anoop and Suraj on Monday filed applications for anticipatory bail in the light of the FIR.
The survivor opened up on Monday, for the first time after the assault and the harrowing months during when she faced investigations and jibes from Dileep’s fans.
“This has not been an easy journey. The journey from being a victim to becoming a survivor. For 5 years now, my name and my identity have been suppressed under the weight of the assault inflicted on me. Though I am not the one who has committed the crime, there have been many attempts to humiliate, silence and isolate me,” the survivor said in a social media post shared by several top film stars, including Prithviraj, Tovino Thomas and Aishwarya Lakshmi.
“But at such times I have had some who stepped forward to keep my voice alive. Now when I hear so many voices speak up for me I know that I am not alone in this fight for justice. To see justice prevail, to get wrongdoers punished and to ensure no one else goes through such an ordeal again, I shall continue this journey. For all those who are standing with me — a heartfelt thank you for your love,” she said in the post.
She had earlier written to Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan to continue the investigation in the light of the filmmaker’s revelations and audio clips.
