Kerala High Court dismisses actor Siddique’s bail plea in sexual assault case

The Kerala High Court dismissed an anticipatory bail plea by Malayalam actor Siddique in a sexual assault case lodged against him by an actress.
An FIR was filed against Siddique in connection with the sexual assault allegations by an actress in August this year. The case was registered by the Trivandrum Museum Police under the non-bailable offence of rape based on the complaint.
She had given her statement to the Special Investigation Team constituted to investigate the incidents of sexual harassment in the Malayalam film industry.
Siddique had resigned from the post of General Secretary of the AMMA, following the sexual assault allegations.
In his anticipatory bail plea, Siddique further claimed that the actress had repeatedly, for the past five years, made unsubstantiated and false claims of sexual misbehaviour and “verbal sexual offers” by him in a theatre in 2016, according to a report in news agency PTI.
“But now she has raised totally contradictory allegation of more serious crime of rape at a different place in the same year,” he had said in his plea.
Siddique claimed in the petition that the complainant is making these allegations because he conducted a press conference along with other offcer bearers of the Assosciation of Malayalam Movie Actors (AMMA) after the release of the Justice Hema Committee report.
The Hema Committee report shed light on the widespread and persistent sexual harassment faced by women in the Malayalam cinema, with many alleging they were subjected to unwanted advances even before commencing work.
The actress had accused him of sexual misconduct in 2019 during the screening of a Malayalam movie at Nila theatre in Thiruvanthapuram, and has labelled the same allegations again.