South actress abduction case: Kerala Police arrives at Dileep's house ahead of bail plea hearing

Pic Courtesy: IANS photo

Kochi: With actor Dileep's anticipatory bail plea in the actress abduction case to be heard on Friday, a team of police officials arrived at his residence near here on Thursday.

The house was found locked, but the police team jumped the gate to enter the premises. After an hour, a relative of the actor reached the spot and opened the house for the police to do the inspection and search, for which they had permission from the court.

It was last week that the police registered a fresh case under non-bailable clauses against Dileep, his brother Anoop, his brother-in-law Sooraj and other family members.

Dileep had moved the court seeking anticipatory bail in the new case registered by the police team investigating the actress abduction case, in which he is an accused.

This fresh development came at a time when the trial in the case was in its last lap, but things went haywire after a revelation by a close friend of the actor and Malayalam movie director Balachandra Kumar.

Kumar, who recently fell out with Dileep, had told the police that the actor is in possession of a few clips of the female actor, who was sexually assaulted. Kumar also pointed out that the actor had threatened to take action on his own against a few police officials, who were probing the actress abduction case.

Kumar presented himself before the police probe team and gave his detailed statement and on Wednesday he testified the same before a local magistrate.

Incidentally, the visuals, which according to Kumar were shown by Dileep, have only been seen by the trial court till then, and hence the fresh revelation by Kumar has landed Dileep in deep trouble.

Retired former SP George Joseph, who during his service period was a part of several probe teams, said there was nothing wrong in the arrival of the police at the actor's home. "What has now come out are fresh revelations and the police are duty-bound to go after the new evidence to corroborate the revelation. As things stand, all these will come before the court which will consider the anticipatory bail plea moved by the actor," said Joseph.

In his plea, Dileep said all the revelations are "baseless" and that he has done no wrong.

Dileep was arrested in 2017 in a case related to a gang sexually assaulting a frontline heroine of South Indian movies and filming the attack. After two months in jail, he was released on bail and the trial in the case was on, when the fresh revelation was made.