KOCHI: The city police will soon summon Malayalam actor Shine Tom Chacko for questioning after CCTV visuals caught him fleeing from a hotel in Kochi during a raid by the District Anti Narcotic Special Action Force (DANSAF) in the intervening night of Wednesday and Thursday.
The police action comes in the wake of the actor’s “dangerous” fleeing attempt by reportedly jumping out of his hotel room window while the cops knocked on the door.
The actor will be questioned on why he ran out of the hotel on seeing a police party and about the persons he met on the day. A notice summoning him will be issued at the earliest, police sources said.“We have confirmed that one of the persons who ran out was Shine. However, no case has been registered as we could not recover any narcotic substance from his room,” ACP (Narcotic Cell) Abdul Salam K A told TNIE.
The actor was in a room on the third floor of the hotel near the Town Hall metro station in Kaloor when the DANSAF team reached there looking for a drug peddler. While going through the register, they spotted the actor’s name as an occupant of room 314.
Suspicious, they went up to his room, and knocked on the door. After some time, a person opened the door. The police did not recover any narcotic substances from the room even after an extensive search. Later, while inspecting the CCTV footage, they were shocked to see the actor fleeing through the reception area. Sources said Shine might have jumped out the window, which would explain the cracks spotted on the asbestos sheet of the second floor. They said he might have escaped through the swimming pool area and ran down the stairs to reach the reception before escaping by riding pillion on a two-wheeler.
Shine was acquitted in a 2015 drug case on April 14 by the Ernakulam additional sessions court, which cited procedural lapses by the police during the drug seizure and arrest.
Recently, another young actor, Sreenath Bhasi, withdrew his anticipatory bail petition filed in the Kerala High Court, in connection with the seizure of hybrid cannabis allegedly found with a woman in Alappuzha. The petition was withdrawn after it was revealed he was not among the film stars under the police scanner in the case.
