Kerala HC again rejects bail to Dileep

Kochi, Aug 29: Inflicting another setback to leading Malayalam actor Dileep, who is in judicial custody in connection with a case of kidnapping and sexually assaulting a young actress, the Kerala High Court rejected his bail plea for second time today. In his second bail application moved before the court, the petitioner had submitted that he had been wrongly implicated. However, he High Court said that there was a prima facie evidence against Dileep, which was recorded in the case diary. The court also agreed to the prosecution’s argument that Dileep was an influenced person in the film industry and if let him out on bail, it was possible him to influence the further course of the investigation. The High Court that inspected the documents submitted, which included 169 documents, 223 evidences and 15 secret statements, against Dileep in the court, by the prosecution in a sealed cover came to the conclusion that there was enough evidence for the actor's involvement in the case. In his petition Dileep said, he was only the unfortunate victim of an orchestrated media campaign and proceedings of a group of police officers acting on the pre-conceived notion of guilt of the petitioner and wanting to implicate him as an accused. The continued detention would not serve any useful purpose for further investigation, if any, and that being so his further detention was unjust, the petition said, adding that his continued detention was delaying the shooting and release of movies, affecting the livelihood of people associated with them. However, the High Court rejected Dileep’s counsel’s argument that Appunni, the actor’s manager, had been questioned and case had been registered against the two advocates for destroying the phone, allegedly used to film the assault of the actress. The court also said that since the original memory card had not been recovered yet, the investigation must proceed. Dileep, charged under various sections of the IPC, including hatching a criminal conspiracy for abduction and assault of the actress in a moving car on February 17, is currently lodged in a jail in his home town Aluva. So far, six persons have been arrested in connection with case. Police have claimed that the conspiracy to abduct and assault the actress and film the act was hatched by Dileep and Pulsar Suni, the prime accused in the case. This was the second time that the High Court had rejected Dileep’s bail application. It was on July 24 the first petition was rejected and he approached the High court on August 11. UNI