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 earl♍ier this month.
Edavela's arrest came a day afte💞r 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 P🧸olice headquarters in Kochi by the SIT- led by AIG G. Poonkuzhal.
After the bail, Edavela Babu was taken to th♉e 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 Ba✃bu, actor-politician M Mukesh, Malayalam actor Jayasurya, Maniyan Pilla Raju, advocate Chandrasekaran, producti♛on controller Noble, and an individual identified as Vichu.
She claimed Babu asked𒈔 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 gesture෴s 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 membersh♏ip fees''. She also cl🌸aimed that she stopped getting movie offers after she refused to do so.
Po🤪st the FIR was registered, Babu ap✃proached 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 repu﷽tation of a few actors in the Mal🧜ayalam industry.
On September 5, a Kochi court granted 𒅌anticipatory bail to Babu.
