Malyalam actor Dileep's wife, actor Kavya Madhavan, has been served summons by the Kerala crime branch to be present for questioning under the ongoing investigation on Monday at the police club in Aluva, Ernakulam.
Dileep has been accused of masterminding the abduction and sexual assault of a fellow actor in 2017 and of conspiring to kill the investigating officers in the case. He was arrested but is currently out on bail.
There are ten accused in the abduction-assault case, seven of whom have been arrested.
Kavya Madhavan is the eighth accused and allegedly the chief conspirator in the assault-abduction case. The police believe that as per a phone call recording of Dileep’s brother-in-law TN Sooraj, Kavya Madhavan was aware of the crime.
The police’s summons were preceded by a leaked audio clip of a conversation between TN Sooraj and Sarath, his friend. In the clip, the two can be heard talking of Madhavan's involvement in the case.
The Kerala Crime Branch, which is investigating the case, petitioned the High Court on 6 April, seeking an extension of three months for the probe. On March 8, the High Court had said that the investigations into the case must be completed before April 15.
Meanwhile, the Kerala Crime Branch on Friday arrested Sai Shankar, a cyber expert and hacker alleged to have deleted data from actor Dileep’s phone. Sai, the seventh acussed in the case, had been charged with destruction of evidence as he allegedly deleted 12 messages from a chat in Dileep's phone. He hails from Kozhikode and was arrested from Andhra Pradesh.
The Crime Branch had found an iMac during one of the raids belonging to Sai Shankar’s wife which was used to delete data from Dileep’s phone on January 29, before Dileep’s iPhone was sent for forensic examination by the judicial magistrate.
The Case
In February 2017, a popular Malayalam actor was allegedly abducted and sexually assaulted in a moving car in Kerala's Kochi. The trial was nearing completion in December 2021 when startling allegations surfaced against Dileep, the prime accused in the case, sending the investigation into a new direction.
A criminal conspiracy case was registered against Dileep on 21 January 2022 after several audio clips came to light, in which the actor and one of his relatives allegedly appear to be conspiring to kill six police officials who were investigating the case.
The police had, on 20 January, filed a 68-page statement opposing the anticipatory bail plea filed by the actor in the Kerala High Court after he was booked in the new criminal conspiracy case.
The crime branch said in its statement that for the first time in the state's history, there has been a “criminal conspiracy to harm even the life of investigating officers”.
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