Malayalam actor Shine Tom Chacko and four women models who were arrested in January 2015 for alleged possession of cocaine were acquitted by the Additional District and Sessions Court, Ernakulam on Tuesday, February 11. The court ruled that the prosecution failed to prove the charges under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, 1985.
The verdict was based on blood test results that had ruled out cocaine abuse and the prosecution’s inability to establish that the drugs found at the scene belonged to the accused. Shine and the four women had spent two months in jail before being granted bail by the Kerala High Court in March 2015.
The case stemmed from a police raid at an apartment in Kadavanthra, Kochi, where the group was taken into custody. Shine and models Reshma, Blessy, Tincy Babu, and Sneha Babu were arrested from the apartment while the police were raiding another apartment owned by Nissam, the convict who rammed his Hummer into a security guard in Thrissur.
Other accused in the case were African national Okowe Chigozie Collins, Prithviraj, and Jasbir Singh. But Prithviraj had later turned approver and given a statement against Reshma in the court.