Malayalam rapper Vedan has been booked by the Thrikkakkara police in Kozhikode, for a case of rape, and charged under section 376(2) of the Indian Penal Code. The crime had allegedly taken place before the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita came into effect.
A doctor from Kozhikode district of Kerala filed the complaint with the Thrikkakkara police on July 30, stating that Hiran Das Murali, known popularly as Vedan, had raped her in 2021 and then sexually assaulted her multiple times between August 2021 and March 2023 under the pretext of marriage.
After getting acquainted with him over social media and phone calls, she met him at her flat in Kozhikode. She alleged that he raped her the first time they met and then promised to marry her. For nearly two years they had met multiple times and had sexual relations under this promise, she stated in her complaint. She had also sent him money several times, on his request, and booked his train tickets too, worth thousands of rupees.
In July 2023, he allegedly broke relations with her, and stopped taking her calls, she alleged. She had been under treatment for depression since then. However, a recent revelation by a woman about being sexually assaulted by Vedan and his declaration on a channel that he was in love for the first time in his life now had triggered her to make the complaint, she stated.
TNM had earlier spoken to two other women who alleged they were sexually assaulted by Vedan. Both the women said that Vedan never apologised to them personally, four years after the crime. Accusations of sexual assault were made against Vedan first on the page Women Against Sexual Harassment four years ago. The doctor who registered the case stated that Vedan had first come to meet her, saying that he wanted to talk about the WASH post.
