A court in the southern Indian state of Kerala has acquitted Malayalam superstar Dileep in the case of abduction and rape of a leading actress.
The trial court convicted six others in the case but cleared Dileep who was accused of criminal conspiracy in the case to kidnap and assault the woman.
The actress, who has worked in more than 80 films in southern Indian languages and won a number of prestigious awards, was assaulted by a group of men while travelling from Thrissur to Kochi in February 2017.
Indian law bars identification of survivors of sexual assault, but in 2022 the actress had waived her anonymity and spoken to the BBC about her ordeal. She has the option to challenge the verdict in high court.
Monday morning’s judgement was pronounced by Honey M Varghese, Principal District and Sessions Court judge in Ernakulam city.
Security outside the courtroom was tight, with both entrances barricaded and a large number of police personnel deployed.
Dileep, who had denied the charges against him, was arrested in 2017 and held in custody for three months before being released on bail.
He was among a dozen people who were named as accused in the case. Police had invoked charges of gang rape, criminal conspiracy, abduction and sexual assault among others.
The sentencing for the six convicted men is set for 12 December.
In 2022, five years after the assault, the actress had broken her silence and described her “difficult journey from being a victim to a survivor”.
Her Instagram post was shared by some of the biggest stars from Kerala, including Mohanlal and Mammootty, and many Bollywood actresses spoke up in her support.
She had told the BBC that on the day of the assault, she was travelling from Thrissur to Kochi to dub for a film the next morning when she was kidnapped.
Her attackers made videos of the assault – “maybe they wanted to blackmail me”, she had said.
Speaking of her trauma, she said that the incident “turned my life upside down” and that “I have been to hell and back”.
Considering her and Dileep’s celebrity status, there was a lot of media attention on the case and a lot of the coverage had been “hurtful”.
She was victim-shamed online, with people asking why she was travelling at 7pm. Others questioned her morality, hurled abuse, and even claimed she had made it up – that she had “staged it.”
After the assault sparked outrage, the state government appointed a panel led by a former Kerala High Court judge to examine the problems faced by women in the state’s film industry.
The Hema Committee report which was released last year revealed the deep rot in one of India’s most popular film hubs. It said the industry was dominated by “a mafia of powerful men” and that “sexual harassment of women is rampant”.
