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A Kerala court on Thursday granted anticipatory bail to Malayalam actor and Member of Legislative Assembly (MLA) Mukesh and actor and former office bearer of Malayalam Movie Artistes Association Edavela Babu.
Actress Meenu Munir had filed a case against both of them accusing them of rape. After this, Mukesh and Babu approached the Ernakulam Sessions Court with separate petitions for anticipatory bail where Judge H.M. Varghese gave the decision to grant them anticipatory bail.
On August 29, actress Meenu Munir had made serious allegations against many artists including Mukesh and Babu.
The judge said – there is a difference between rape and mutual consent
During the hearing, the judge said, 'There is a lot of difference between rape and consensual sex. The court has observed that the complainant asked Mukesh to pay her child's school fees and later also demanded Rs 1 lakh. If it was a case of rape, money would not have been demanded.'
Both actors said- we were blackmailed
Earlier in the court, both Mukesh and Babu had claimed that Meenu had made such allegations against them to blackmail them.
Mukesh claimed his innocence and said that the complaint against him has been made with the malicious intent to ruin his career both as a politician and an actor.
Mukesh said- the actress had demanded Rs 1 lakh
Mukesh also shared a screenshot of the message sent by the actress in the court in which the actress demanded Rs 1 lakh from him. Babu said in his application that a conspiracy has been hatched to spoil the status of some actors in the industry. This complaint is a part of that conspiracy.
Both of them said in their petition that this complaint has been filed 15 years after the alleged incident. After this, both the actors sought anticipatory bail while assuring the court to cooperate in the investigation.
Meenu had accused 7 people including Mukesh and Babu
After the Justice K. Hema Committee report was released, Meenu had made serious allegations against 7 artists from the Malayalam film industry. The actress first accused all of them of sexually abusing her on the sets of the film through a Facebook post and then gave a written complaint to the Kerala Police.
Referring to the incident of 2013 in her Facebook post, Meenu had mentioned the physical and verbal harassment that she had faced.
After this, Kerala Police registered a case against 7 people including the 67-year-old actor and South actor Jayasurya in this case. This case will be investigated by SIT (Special Investigation Team), which has been formed to investigate cases of sexual harassment in the Malayalam film industry.
Hema Committee report came out after 5 years
In February 2017, an actress from the Malayalam film industry was sexually harassed in a moving car. Actor Dileep's name came to the fore behind this incident, after which many people started raising their voice against the mistreatment of women in the Malayalam film industry.
After this incident, the government formed the Hema Committee. This committee submitted its report to the government in December 2019, which has come out now after 5 years. There are many shocking revelations in this report, which have shaken the Malayalam film industry.
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