The Crime Branch of the Kerala Police has registered yet another case against actor Dileep and five others based on a statement by director Balachandrakumar that the actor had threatened to endanger police officers who were probing the 2017 case of sexual assault on a woman actor, in which Dileep was arraigned as an accused.
The accused in the new case are Dileep, his brother Anoop, brother-in-law Sooraj, Appu, Babu Chengamanad, and a yet-to-be identified person. The new development is said to be the fallout of a meeting on Saturday of the recently constituted Special Investigation Team (SIT) that is probing the actor assault case.
The new case has been registered under Sections 506, 34, 120, 118 of the IPC – which cover provisions including criminal intimidation, common intention to carry out a crime, and conspiracy. An audio clip handed over by Balachandrakumar to the probe team reportedly has details of the conversation Dileep had with the five others, in which there is a threat to harm Dy.SP Baiju Paulose in a lorry accident.
The actor assault case had recently taken a new turn, with Balachandrakumar stating that Dileep invited him to view the visuals of the actor being assaulted. A probe is currently under way on how he obtained a copy of the visuals.
The FIR registered on a complaint filed by Mr. Paulose says the actor spoke of endangering the lives of five police officials — A.V. George (whose visual the actor showed on YouTube, as per Balachandrakumar), Sojan, Sudarshan, Sandhya, and Mr. Paulose. Dileep also hinted at “deploying a lorry to endanger Mr. Paulose, for which the expense would come to ₹1.5 crore.”
