Not a shred of evidence against Dileep, his arrest illegal: What the actor’s lawyer told court

As Malayalam superstar Dileep was produced in the Angamaly court on Wednesday morning, hundreds gathered outside. The same people who had perhaps lined up in many previous occasions to applaud Dileep, hooted loudly as he was taken in and out from court.

Though the Angamaly court denied Dileep bail in the actor abduction and gangrape case, and granted two days of custody to the police team in charge of the investigation, Dileep’s lawyer Ramkumar made a spirited defense of his client in court.

Ramkumar told the court that there was not a shred of evidence against Dileep. He even challenged the arrest and told the court that according to Supreme Court guidelines, a person cannot be arrested on mere suspicion.   

The remand report submitted by the police had nineteen points, and Dileep’s lawyer has opposed almost all of them through the bail application.

The bail application filed on behalf of Dileep claimed that 8 points raised by the police had nothing to do with him, but had to deal with his driver, staff and other accused. The police had listed out various phone calls made by Pulsar Suni to Dileep’s driver Appunni and his efforts to handover letters to Dileep. The actor’s lawyer, however, has contested these allegations by the police and maintains that Dileep was not directly involved in any of these calls or meetings.

The police case is largely based on discrepancies in Dileep’s statement. In the remand report, police had claimed that though Dileep had declared that he did not know Suni, he had met him at Hotel Abad Plaza in Kochi between March and April 2013.

But Dileep’s lawyer said that a programme by AMMA (Association of Malayalam Movie Artistes) was held at the hotel on those dates, and many artistes including Dileep were there at that time. The lawyer says that the police have willfully omitted that detail to make Dileep look guilty.

The bail application also says that many allegations raised by the police were solely based on statements given by a criminal like Pulsar Suni. It also said that though the two may have been at the same place and same time; there was no evidence to prove that they had hatched a conspiracy together.