Actor Nivin Pauly, who was booked in a case of sexual assault, has been given a clean chit on Wednesday, November 6. The case was investigated by the Special Investigation Team, formed in the aftermath of the Hema Committee report, that came out in August, and gave a detailed account of issues in Malayalam cinema. SIT officials confirmed to TNM that Nivin Pauly’s name was removed from the list of accused after verifying his passport details and his credit card activity. “It was found that he was not in the location where the assault was alleged to have happened,” the officer said. The investigation against others who were accused along with Nivin Pauly will however continue. 

The Kothamangalam Oonukal police which filed the First Information Report against Nivin and five others passed on the case to the SIT. The SIT, led by Deputy Inspector General of Police Ajitha Beegum, submitted the report, removing Nivin Pauly as an accused in the case, to the Kothamangalam Judicial First Class Magistrate Court. 

Nivin, film producer AK Sunil and four others were charged by the police under relevant sections of the Indian Pencal Code, including section 376 (rape). Hours after his name cropped up in the FIR, Nivin held a press conference in Kochi, denying all the allegations against him and calling it a conspiracy. Nivin, a popular actor in Malayalam and Tamil cinema who has worked in films like Neram and Premam and Bangalore Days, had said that he wanted to immediately clear the air, requesting the media to check the facts before labelling him an abuser. He said that he neither knew the complainant nor had he spoken to her. 

The woman who made the complaint against Nivin and the others had alleged that she was sexually assaulted in a hotel room in Dubai in November last year, after she was promised a role in a film.