The Kerala Police’s probe into abduction of and assault on a frontline cine actress in February has reached the final stage with the investigators receiving crucial indications about the conspirators behind the incident even as Malayalam movie superstar Dileep has reportedly consulted legal advisors about seeking anticipatory bail.
Sources said the investigators had received crucial evidences on the conspiracy behind the attack on the actress but Director General of Police loknath Behera had given clear instructions to the investigating team to make arrests only after plugging all loopholes since the persons involved were “highly influential and very popular”.
While Additional DGP B Sandhya supervising the investigation informed that their focus now was on the conspiracy behind the attack, Superintendent of Police (Rural, Ernakulam) AV George said they would catch “all the sharks” however big they were. DGP Behera declined to disclose predict when the probe would conclude but said, “It is at a crucial stage.”
According to people close to superstar Dileep, he is planning to apply for anticipatory bail if the probe team asks him to appear for another round of questioning. The police had questioned the superstar, his manager Appunni and close friend and actor-director Nadir Shah for 13 hours on June 28 in connection with the conspiracy behind the attack on the actress.
Dileep’s name got linked with the case after Sunil Kumar alias Pulsar Suni, prime accused in the case, wrote a letter from the prison where he had been detained seeking his help and called up Nadir Shah and Appunni demanding Rs 1.5 crore not to implicate the superstar in the conspiracy. The actor had lodged a complaint with the police saying there was a bid to blackmail him.
Pulsar Suni and his associates had abducted the popular actress, attacked her physically and recorded visuals of the attack in a moving car on the night of February 17 as she was travelling from Thrissur to Kochi in connection with the dubbing of an under-production film. The gang set her free at a place near Kochi just before the next dawn.
Reports quoting police sources said that the investigators were in possession of a 150-second video-clip containing the visuals – recorded obviously by the assailants – that proved that the actress had been subjected to brutal physical attack and humiliation inside the moving car. This would constitute crucial evidence in the case, they said.
It is not clear as to whence the police had collected the video-clip. They had held searches at laksyah, an online garment marketing centre being run by Dileep’s present wife and popular actress Kavya Madhavan at Kakkanad near Kochi on the basis of Suni’s disclosure that he had visited the place after the attack on the actress to hand over “something”.
The probe team is also said to be planning to question Kavya in the case. Sources said that four persons could have taken part in the conspiracy behind the attack and two had already been identified. The police have also learned that the preparations for assaulting the actress had started last November though Suni had told them that the plot was four years old.
Meanwhile, Suni, who was produced before a court at Angamaly on Tuesday as his remand period was to end, said that there were several “sharks” to be caught. “(I have been) swimming with sharks,” he told newsmen outside the Magistrate Court but he did not respond to the query whether Dileep had any role in the plot. The court extended the remand period till July 18.
lawyer BA Aloor, who arrived at the court to take over Suni’s case from his present lawyer, said Suni had told him that he did not want to move bail application as his life could be in danger if he was released. Aloor, who had appeared for the accused in the sensational Soumya and Jisha rape-murder cases, said Suni had told him that he would be safer inside the jail than outside.