The Hema Committee Row has shocked the Malayalam industry to the core with many big actors being accused of sexual assault. As per the latest reports, actors Mukesh and Edavela Babu have gotten anticipatory bail in s*xual assault cases by a court in Kerala’s Kochi on Thursday night. For the unversed, actor Mukesh is a two-time CPI-M legislator while Edavela Babu is the former General Secretary of the Association of Malayalam Movie Artistes’ (AMMA).
As per the latest updates, the Kerala Police so far has registered 11 FIRs out of which 10 people are from the film industry. The registered FIR list contains names of actors and directors such as Mukesh, Nivin Pauly, Siddique, Jayasurya, Edavela Babu, and Maniyanpilla Raju, directors Ranjith and V.K. Prakash, and production executives Vichu and Noble. Moreover, actor Baburaj and director Tulasidas have also been named in the complaint list but no FIRs have been registered against them yet.
A special team of investigators with 7 police officials, out of which 4 are women are currently in the process of taking statements from victims who have bravely come forward with their complaints. However, they are yet to question the accused. More recent developments reveal that the Kerala High Court’s acting Chief Justice A.Muhamed Mustaque has ordered the formation of a special two-member bench of Justices A.K. Jayasankaran Nambiar and C.S. Sudha who will look into all the cases that are registered under the Hema Committee report.
On the other hand, actors Mukesh and Edavela Babu are not the only ones whose anticipatory bails have been approved. In fact, director Ranjith has also been accused in a sexual assault case that allegedly happened in 2009 and was filed by a Bengali female artist, also got anticipatory bail approved by a Kerala High Court.