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Big relief for actor Dileep as Kerala HC grants anticipatory bail in fresh case
The Kerala high court, however, imposed strict conditions, asking actor Dileep and others to surrender their passports and co-operate with the investigating agencies. Dileep and others had moved court after the fresh case was registered last month.
Malayalam actor Dileep and four others were granted anticipatory bail by the Kerala high court on Monday in a fresh case for allegedly threatening the investigating officer Baiju Paulose in the 2017 actor abduction and sexual assault case. The bail was granted by a bench headed by Justice P Gopinath after two-week-long hearing on the plea moved by the accused.
The court has, however, imposed strict conditions asking the actor and other accused to surrender their passports. The court has also asked them to co-operate with the crime branch of the Kerala police, which is investigating the case.
Dileep's brother, his brother-in-law and two others are the co-accused in the case.
The fresh case was registered in January this year after director Balachandra Kumar’s interview to a TV channel in December 2021 in which he claimed Dileep was in possession of tapes of the assault.
He also submitted several audio tapes to the police. In one of the tapes, one person allegedly identified as Anoop, Dileep’s brother, can be beard talking about a conspiracy to kill Paulose.
The conversation allegedly took place in November 2017 at the actor’s house in Aluva in Ernakulam district, the crime branch has said in its FIR.
The new FIR was registered against six people - Dileep, his brother Anoop, another relative Suraj, two others (Appu and Babu) and a man director Kumar addressed in his interview as the 'VIP'.
The accused were charged under Indian penal code sections 116 (abetment of offence), 118 (concealing design to commit an offence), 120 B (criminal conspiracy) and 506 (criminal intimidation).
The police had opposed the anticipatory bail plea, saying it would send a wrong message to the society. They had said that Dileep and others will undermine then ongoing investigation into the case if they are granted pre-arrest bail.
The case relates to an incident in 2017 in which a woman actor was kidnapped and sexually assaulted by a gang in Kochi while she was returning home after a shooting assignment. Six months after the incident, Dileep was arrested and made an accused in the case. Prosecution alleged that the attack was planned at the behest of Dileep to settle an old score with the woman.
