Actor Siddique was arrested and immediately released on bail in connection with a rape case on Friday, December 6. Siddique, accompanied by his lawyer, appeared before the Special Investigation Team (SIT) tasked with investigating complaints related to the Hema Committee report. After registering arrest, he was taken for a medical check-up at the Thiruvananthapuram General Hospital, and he will reportedly be produced in court before being allowed to go.
Earlier on November 19, the Supreme Court granted anticipatory bail to the actor after the Kerala High Court denied bail citing that there is prima facie evidence to show his involvement in the crime and that his custodial interrogation is “inevitable” for the case. While granting the bail, the SC bench, headed by Justice Bela M Trivedi, questioned the survivor about why she took so many years to file a police complaint despite posting about the incident on Facebook in 2019.
Siddique, a powerful name in the Malayalam film industry, was also a top office bearer of AMMA (Association of Malayalam Movie Artists), formerly headed by superstar Mohanlal. He was booked by the Museum police in Kerala’s Thiruvananthapuram on August 27 under charges of rape and criminal intimidation. The survivor, a young woman, said in her complaint that Siddique allegedly invited her to a hotel and raped her. Siddique, however, denied the allegations but resigned from the general secretary position of AMMA and his whereabouts remained unknown for a few days until his bail hearing in the Kerala HC.
In the Supreme Court, Siddique’s main contention for bail was built entirely on discrediting the survivor by pulling up posts from her Facebook account and citing her delay in filing a complaint. He submitted 17 annexures, 12 of which were the survivor’s Facebook posts. This was the same argument he put forth before the Kerala High Court, but the HC described such statements as “unwarranted and uncharitable”.
The woman’s complaint against Siddique came days after the release of the Hema Committee report which revealed rampant sexual harassment and power abuse in the Malayalam film industry. Triggering a new MeToo wave in the state, several other survivors had come forward with complaints after a redacted version of the report was made available to RTI applicants in August this year. The Kerala government, on August 26, set up the SIT under IGP G Sparjan Kumar to conduct a preliminary probe into the sexual harassment allegations made against several actors.