KOCHI: The case pertaining to the abduction and sexual assault of an actress in Kochi a few months ago took a new turn on Saturday with actor Dileep and director-actor Nadir Shah coming out publicly alleging blackmailing bid by a person ‘on behalf of Pulsar Suni’, the prime accused in the case.
Confirming the development, Nadir Shah told Express the duo had lodged a complaint in this regard with the DGP on April 20. As per the complaint, a person named Vishnu contacted Nadir Shah and Appunni, a close aide of Dileep, over phone and demanded `1.5 crore for not targeting the actor.
Nadir Shah told reporters the person who contacted him had revealed several persons from the Malayalam film industry wanted to drag Dileep into the case. “The caller also mentioned a few names, who reportedly forced Suni to name Dileep in the case. Though we did not take it seriously initially, we filed a police complaint following the blackmail call,” Nadir Shah said.
The complaint, which alleged Dileep was unnecessarily being dragged into the case, was lodged when Loknath Behra was the state police chief. “The audio clips of the phone calls demanding money and a letter reportedly written by Suni to Dileep from jail were also handed over to the police,” he said.
Probe on
The police said they could not divulge more details at this point as the investigation team was looking into the matter. “The team will verify whether there is any substance in the complaint and also check the authenticity of the audio clips,” said a senior police officer. He said the clips would be subjected to a forensic examination and the voice of the person involved in the audio would be recorded again to cross-verify with the voice in the clips.