Thiruvananthapuram, Dec 1 (IANS) The 2017 Malayalam actress abduction case is back in the headlines and on Tuesday, took another twist when the Kerala Police began a search in the house of actor-turned-Left Democratic Front legislator’s K.B. Ganesh Kumar.
Three-time legislator Ganesh Kumar’s party Kerala Congress-B is a constituent of the ruling CPI-M led LDF.
Last Tuesday, Ganesh Kumar’s close aide Pradip Kumar was arrested from his office-cum- residence by police from Kasargode district, for trying to influence approver Vipin Lal at his home town in the district early this year.
Tuesday’s search operations at the legislator’s place at Pathanapuram took place hours after a court in Kasargode granted bail to Pradip Kumar.
Meanwhile another police team is also conducting a search at the home of Pradip Kumar.
The police search on Tuesday came in wake of Ganesh Kumar, a former Minister in the Oommen Chandy-led United Democratic Front government but switching loyalties to the Left in 2016, expressing strong resentment at the way his office staff was arrested.
The actress was abducted and assaulted in a moving car in Kochi on February 17, 2017.
Hugely popular Malayalam film actor Dileep was arrested in July 2017 in connection with the case and spent several weeks in jail before securing bail.
Dileep has been named as a conspirator in the case and been charged with “revenge crime”.
Since securing bail, he has been allegedly trying to delay the trial in the case, through legal submissions, even before the apex court.
Incidentally, this case even rocked the smooth functioning of the Association of Malayalam Movie Artistes (AMMA) wherein a group of woman actors raised a banner of revolt in the way it had handled the issue.
Ganesh Kumar is a powerful office bearer of AMMA.
All these new developments come at a time when in a setback to the Kerala government and the victim in the actress abduction case, the High Court last week declined to order the case be shifted from the special court, set up under a woman judge, to another court.
Now, all eyes are on when the trial court is all set to resume the trial proceedings in the case.
In the trial that began early this year, the court has by now examined close to 200 witnesses, even as the apex court had directed that there should be no more delays and that the verdict be positively delivered in January 2021.
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