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The Supreme Court on Tuesday granted bail to Sunil NS (Pulsar Suni), the prime accused in the 2017 South actress Bhavana Menon sexual assault case. Malayalam actor Dileep is also an accused in this case.
Judge Abhay S Oka and Judge Pankaj Mithal passed the order noting that Suni has been in jail for more than seven years and the co-accused (Dilip) in the same case has already been released on bail.
The court said, considering the long imprisonment and the unlikely end of the case soon, there is a case for releasing the appellant on bail. The appellant should be produced in the lower court within a week for granting bail, the state’s side should also be heard before finalizing the conditions.
Pulsar heard it and Dilip.
Suni has been in jail for seven and a half years
Suni was arrested on 23 February 2017. He was later denied bail and has been in jail since then.
Suni had filed bail petitions ten times in the High Court alone. He had also approached the Supreme Court twice. The High Court had imposed a fine of Rs 25,000 on Suni for repeatedly filing bail petitions.
Bhavana Menon.
The actress was kidnapped while returning home
The incident in which Pulsar Suni is the main accused is of 17th February 2017. During that time, a famous Malayalam actress Bhavana was kidnapped by some people when she was sitting in her car to go home after shooting. Four people sexually assaulted her for about two hours.
Some of the accused had also made a video of the entire incident to blackmail the actress. The actress somehow saved her life. In this case, Kerala Police arrested seven out of ten accused, out of which Pulsar Suni was the main accused. Actor Dileep, accused of plotting the crime, was also arrested but later he got bail.
Hema Committee submitting its report to Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan in 2019.
After this case, Hema Committee was formed
After this incident, questions were raised about the safety of women in the Malayalam film industry. After the incident, under pressure, the Kerala government formed a three-member committee headed by retired High Court Judge K. Hema, former actress Sharada and retired IAS KB Valsala Kumari, which was named Hema Committee.
The committee took two years to prepare the report. During this period, interviews were conducted with many artists, technicians, directors, producers, film organizations and WCC members working in the film industry and an attempt was made to know from them the status of women.
On December 31, 2019, Justice Hema Committee submitted its report to the government. Which has been released on August 18, 2024. This report revealed that in Malayalam cinema, women are demanded sexual favors in exchange for work. They are not even given basic facilities like toilets on the sets.
