Malayalam actor Siddiqui, accused in the rape case, is absconding. Now the police have intensified the search to locate him. In fact, the police have issued a lookout notice. At the same time, the Kerala High Court had refused to grant anticipatory bail to the actor in this rape case. Now the lookout notice published in the newspapers states that 65-year-old Siddiqui is accused in the case of rape and criminal intimidation and anyone having information about him should contact the Police Commissioner of Thiruvananthapuram City or the Deputy Inspector General of Police of Thiruvananthapuram Range.
Siddiqui has approached the Supreme Court for anticipatory bail in the rape case after the Kerala High Court on Tuesday (September 24) refused to grant him relief. The High Court had said that given the seriousness of the allegations against him, it is necessary to interrogate him in custody for proper investigation of the crime.
What are the allegations against actor Siddiqui?
The notice gives Siddiqui’s physical description along with his photo, stating that he is 5.7 feet tall and of good build. A case was registered against Siddiqui under sections 376 (rape) and 506 (criminal intimidation). He claimed in his petition that the complainant actress has been running a “long campaign of harassment and false allegations since 2019” against him and under this the actress has filed this case.
The accused’s side
In his anticipatory bail plea, he further claimed that the actress has been repeatedly making baseless and false claims for the last five years that he sexually abused her and made ‘verbal sexual advances’ at a theatre in 2016. Siddique had resigned from the post of general secretary of the Association of Malayalam Movie Artists (AMMA) following the allegations levelled against him by the actress.
Hema Committee Report
This matter came to the fore when the Justice K. Hema Committee report revealed allegations of sexual harassment against several directors and actors. FIRs have been filed against several well-known personalities of the Malayalam film industry. The Kerala government had formed the committee in 2017 to investigate the assault case on an actress. The Hema Committee report has revealed cases of harassment and exploitation of women in the Malayalam cinema industry. After allegations of sexual harassment and exploitation surfaced against several actors and directors, the state government on August 25 announced the formation of a seven-member special investigation team to investigate these cases.
