The verdict in the 2017 Kerala actor assault case was announced exactly at 11.05 am on December 8. Twenty minutes later, DySP Baiju Paulose, the investigating officer, quietly exited the courtroom and slid away from the media.
The principal district and sessions court in Ernakulam acquitted Dileep and convicted six others in the case. The judge said that the prosecution had failed to prove the conspiracy in which actor Dileep had been accused of masterminding the crime.
The actor left the courtroom, thronged by his followers and waving to the crowds. One of the first words he uttered were, “This was a fake story crafted by the criminal police” — a direct attack on Baiju Paulose’s work.
Baiju Paulose is probably the most scrutinised investigating officer in a criminal trial in India.
The 52-year-old Deputy Superintendent of Police from Kerala had spent over two decades of his career cracking multiple high profile crimes earning himself a reputation of being a reticent and incorruptible officer. Through it all, he consistently managed to stay out of the limelight.
That is, until eight years ago.
February 17, 2017, was like any regular day for Baiju Paulose, who was then the Inspector of Perumbavoor. At the end of a long day at work, he had gone to watch a late-night movie with his wife, a habit shaped by years of long, unpredictable routine.
On their way back, he received a call from a colleague. Gayathri* (name changed), a top female actor, had just filed a case at the Nedumbassery police station that six men had abducted her. One of them sexually assaulted her.
The assault that lasted for close to an hour had been recorded on a phone. The gang had operated not on impulse, but purposefully.
The Kerala police quickly formed a five-member Special Investigation Team. Within two days, Baiju was drafted into it.
By May 2017, the case had become murky. Despite the six men being in custody, officers were struggling to locate a motive. Quiet murmurs of Malayalam superstar actor Dileep being the alleged mastermind behind the violence began to emerge.
It was at this point that Baiju Paulose took charge as the lead investigating officer. With that, he inherited the herculean task of unearthing the motive and the mastermind behind the crime.
But back in February 2017, little did Baiju know that this case was about to change his life in ways he could not have foreseen.
Breaking the investigator