Malayalam movie producer and actor Vijay Babu, who has been accused of raping a woman actor, failed to return to India and appear before the Kerala High Court on Monday, 30 May.
Earlier, his counsel had produced air tickets showing his return on Monday before the court while seeking anticipatory bail. He is now expected to return on Wednesday,1 June.
Vijay has been absconding ever since the police lodged a case of rape against him on 22 April based on the survivor’s complaint.
While he moved the Kerala High Court seeking anticipatory bail, the court said that the bail would be granted only after he produces travel tickets indicating his return to India, after which his lawyers submitted his plane tickets which showed his date of return as 30 May.
Submission by Babu's Lawyers
Vijay’s lawyers submitted the ticket on 24 May, following which the court agreed to hear his bail plea. In his representation to the court, the actor alleged that the survivor filed the complaint to blackmail him. In his interlocutory application, he claimed that their relationship was consensual and that the problem between them started after he decided to cast another actor in his upcoming film.
He also claimed in his plea that he was innocent and was "highly aggrieved" by the one-sided approach of the authorities to make him a "scapegoat for the purpose of news and the media."
Days later, in a detailed Facebook post, the survivor anonymously detailed the physical and mental torture and sexual assault that she allegedly faced at the hands of Vijay Babu. She alleged that he sexually abused her for weeks, and that he even blackmailed her by threatening to release private videos of her.
A look out notice and a blue corner notice were issued as Vijay absconded following the complaint. He has been charged with sections 376 (sexual assault), 506 (criminal intimidation), and 323 (voluntarily causing hurt) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). On 20 May, his passport was also impounded.
The Story So Far
Vijay Babu was accused of sexually assaulting a woman actor, who filed a police complaint on 22 April. She had also put out the details of the physical assault and sexual exploitation she had allegedly faced from the producer-actor on Facebook.
However, after he absconded he appeared on a live-streamed Facebook video on April 26 where he disclosed the identity of the survivor. "I respect the law of the land but here I am the victim and my name has come out. So why shouldn't the other party's name come out too," he said.
Meanwhile, the survivor also alleged that a friend of Vijay called and offered her Rs 1 crore to withdraw the case, which she refused.
In 2017, actor Sandra Thomas had filed an assault complaint against Vijay Babu, which was later withdrawn.
(Published in arrangement with The News Minute.)
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