Overview
- An Ernakulam Sessions court is scheduled to pronounce its judgment on December 8 after final arguments concluded in February and the judge sought clarifications through November.
- On February 17, 2017, a leading woman actor was abducted in Kochi and sexually assaulted in her car, with accused Pulsar Suni recording the attack on a mobile phone.
- Investigators framed the crime as a conspiracy and named actor-producer Dileep as the eighth accused, with charges including IPC 120B, 366 and 376D and relevant IT Act provisions; he was arrested in July 2017 and later granted conditional bail.
- The prosecution’s case was strained as several witnesses turned hostile and two special public prosecutors resigned, and courts rejected the survivor’s petitions to transfer the case from Judge Honey M Varghese.
- A forensic examination found the memory card containing assault visuals was accessed while in court custody, leading to a Kerala High Court probe that identified three judicial employees, and the case helped drive wider reform efforts culminating in the Justice Hema Committee report’s release in 2024.