In the latest development in the Kerala's actor sexual assault case, actor Kavya Madhavan has appeared before the trial court in Ernakulam on August 10, Tuesday. A popular actor of the Malayalam film industry Kavya Madhavan is the wife of actor Dileep, who is the eighth accused in the case. The case pertains to a popular female actor who was abducted and sexaully assaulted in a moving vehicle in Kochi in February 2017. The prosecution's case is that Dileep had hired people to kidnap and assault the actor and he wanted them to record visuals of the act and hand it over to him.
The prime accused in the case Sunilkumar aka Pulsur Suni had given a statement to the police during the investigation of the case that a memory card that contained images of the sexual assault was kept at the office of Laksyah, an online clothing firm run by Kavya Madhavan. The investigators had conducted a search at the Laksyah office in Kochi in 2017. The investigation team had also questioned Kavya Madhavan during the investigation as the main allegation is that Dileep was unhappy that the survivor in the case had divulged his extra marital affair to his first wife Manju Warrier. He was then reportedly seeing Kavya Madhavan, who later went on to become his second wife.
More than 50 people from the Malayalam film industry are witnesses in the case. The alleged involvement of influential actor Dileep had gathered more attention to the case. The case has had a huge impact on the Malayalam film industry with the industry getting divided into people who extended their support to the survivor and those who defended Dileep. Manju Warrier, Samyukta Varma, Kunchako Boban, singer Rimi Tomy are among those who gave statements in the case in December 2017.
In July this year Vishnu, an accused turned approver in the case, was arrested for failing to appear before the trial court. He was the tenth accused but had turned approver in February this year.
Manju Warrier in her statement to police had said that she divorced Dileep in 2015 and the extramarital relationship between him and Kavya was the reason behind that. Manju had also said that it was the survivor actor who had revealed this extra marital affair to her. Kavya Madhavan had given a statement that she was not aware when issues between Dileep and Manju began. Kavya also said that Dileep had told her that the survivor actor had sent Manju pictures of her and Dileep sitting together.