The Kerala High Court on Tuesday posted for January 21 the hearing of the anticipatory bail plea of actor Dileep in the actress abduction case. When the matter came up for hearing this morning, the prosecution sought more time to complete the probe in the light of fresh developments and the court posted the case for Friday. This is the third time that the court is postponing the plea in the wake of fresh developments and as on the previous two occasions, the court ordered that there should be no arrest of the actor, till then. On Monday, the High Court allowed the prosecution to re-examine three and summon five new witnesses in the ongoing trial in the case. All these fresh twists and turns surfaced early this month after film director Balachandra Kumar made fresh statements related to the case.

The court proceedings were progressing smoothly for Dileep till Kumar made an appearance and spilled the beans saying that the actor soon after being released on bail saw the visuals of the actress who was kidnapped being physically attacked by her tormentors. Until this time it was only the trial court had seen it. Kumar made more disclosures before the police and also a magistrate. Based on these disclosures, the police probe team registered a fresh case and sensing that he might be arrested, Dileep sought an anticipatory bail. Dileep was arrested in 2017 and lodged in prison in a case related to a gang sexually assaulting a frontline heroine of South Indian movies and filming the scenes. After two months in jail, he was released on bail.