How 2017 actress assault case involving Dileep brought about churn in Malayalam film industry

As the investigation began, Pulsar Suni, who surrendered to the police, was named the prime accused. But the buck did not stop there. At the time of the assault, Suni had told the survivor that he was implementing a contract — a ‘quotation’ as it is colloquially known.

Dileep’s alleged involvement

Investigators found that the act of sexual violence was the result of a “conspiracy” to intimidate and humiliate the survivor, and that the attack was not an isolated crime but part of a broader conspiracy aimed at intimidating and humiliating the survivor. This line of enquiry led the sleuths to actor-producer Dileep, who had allegedly hired Pulsar Suni to commit the crime.

The motive? He held a grudge against the survivor for outing his extramarital relationship with a fellow woman actor. Dileep’s involvement in the case also came under investigation after a letter which Pulsar Suni had written to him was leaked, back in 2017. In the letter Suni was asking Dileep to complete the payment for committing the crime.

Dileep was added as the eight accused in the case, and booked for criminal conspiracy, intimidation and destruction of evidence. Most of the accused in the case, including Pulsur Suni, were charged under multiple sections of the Indian Penal Code, including 120B (criminal conspiracy), 366 (kidnapping), 376D (gang rape), and others. Sections of the Information Technology Act, 2008, were also invoked because the assault was filmed with an intention to distribute.

Dileep was arrested on July 10, 2017. He was granted conditional bail that October.

Many twists in trial

In 2019, trial court judge Honey M Varghese was appointed to the Additional Special Sessions Court, Ernakulam; the trial began on January 30, 2020.

During the course of the trial the prosecution and the judge developed what seemed to be an antagonistic relationship with the former accusing the latter of being biased against the survivor. Two special public prosecutors quit arguing the case. The survivor filed multiple petitions in higher courts to transfer the case from Judge Honey Varghese’s court; all her pleas were rejected.

The prosecution’s case, meanwhile, seemed to weaken as several witnesses who had initially testified against Dileep turned hostile. However, in 2021 a small-time film director Balachandrakumar, who claimed he was close to Dileep, released several recordings of the latter’s private conversations, one of which allegedly indicated that Dileep was in possession of footage of the assault.

Meanwhile, a forensic report revealed that the memory card holding the visuals of the assault, and in the custody of the court, was accessed illegally. The Kerala High Court ordered a probe into this allegation and found that three judicial employees had accessed the memory card. But no action was taken against them.

The final arguments in the case concluded in February this year, after which the judge sought clarifications till November.

Watershed moment in industry

Regardless of how the court rules on Monday, the case has come to be a moment in the Malayalam film industry. Known for its progressive films, the industry came under intense scrutiny after the case, as women artists and workers revealed the myriad challenges they faced behind the scenes.

In 2017, a group of prominent women actors formed the Women in Cinema Collective (WCC), demanding “systemic reform” within the industry. As a response, the Kerala government constituted the Justice Hema Committee in 2019 to study the working conditions of women in the Malayalam film industry. The committee submitted its report the same year, even though it was withheld from the public for nearly five years.