Malayalam actor and former general secretary of the Association of Malayalam Movie Artistes (AMMA) Edavela Babu was arrested by Kerala Police on Wednesday, September 25, on rape charges. He was later released on bail as he had already secured anticipatory bail from a district court in Ernakulam earlier this month.
Edavela's arrest came a day after actor-legislator M Mukesh's arrest on similar charges. He was also released on bail due to the anticipatory bail which he obtained on September 5.
As per reports, the special investigation team (SIT) recorded Edavela's arrest after three hours of interrogation at the Coastal Police headquarters in Kochi by the SIT- led by AIG G. Poonkuzhal.
After the bail, Edavela Babu was taken to the Ernakulam General Hospital for a medical examination.
What were the allegations against Edavela Babu?
After the Hema Committee report was released, actress Minu Muneer exposed the darker side of the Malayalam film industry. She alleged that several years back, prominent figures from the industry abused her physically and verbally- that led her to leave the film industry. In a detailed Facebook post, Muneer took names of seven men, including Babu, actor-politician M Mukesh, Malayalam actor Jayasurya, Maniyan Pilla Raju, advocate Chandrasekaran, production controller Noble, and an individual identified as Vichu.
She claimed Babu asked for sexual favours in exchange for AMMA membership.
Based on the complaint of the actress, he was booked under IPC sections 354 (sexual assault), 376 (rape) and 509 (acts, words, or gestures that intend to insult a woman's modesty).
There was also another complaint against the actor. Actor Jubitha Andy accused Edavela Babu of asking her to make some “adjustments” to get membership in AMMA ''instead of paying the membership fees''. She also claimed that she stopped getting movie offers after she refused to do so.
Post the FIR was registered, Babu approached Ernakulam Sessions Court to file anticipatory bail plea over the rape allegations made against them.
In the plea, he had stated that it's a criminal conspiracy to malign the reputation of a few actors in the Malayalam industry.
On September 5, a Kochi court granted anticipatory bail to Babu.
