New Delhi:

The Supreme Court has granted Malayalam actor Siddique anticipatory bail in a rape case that emerged amid a spate of sexual assault charges by former actresses in the southern film industry. Siddique was accused of sexual assault by a young actress earlier this year, but the veteran actor denied the charges.

Siddique must deposit his passport in the lower court and cooperate with the officers, said a bench of Justices Bela M Trivedi and Satish Chandra Sharma while granting the relief to the veteran actor. The lower court will decide other conditions for his bail.

The court noted the complaint against Siddique was filed in August, about eight years after the alleged incident occurred in 2016. It also noted that the actress had not gone to the Justice Hema Committee, which was tasked with probing the MeToo charges in the Malayalam film industry.

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The Kerala High Court had denied Siddique the anticipatory bail on September 24 citing the seriousness of the charges, after which cops in Kerala had issued an arrest warrant. Siddique then approached the Supreme Court and was granted interim protection from arrest.

In an affidavit filed in the court earlier this month, he claimed that the Kerala Police was “cooking up baseless stories” against him and accused them of creating a scenario for a “media trial”.

In its latest status report submitted to the court, the cops alleged a lack of cooperation by Siddique and accused him of hindering their probe. The Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing the case said that the actor also destroyed electronic devices and deleted his social media accounts.

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The charges against Siddique emerged amid a wave of sexual assault cases filed against well-known Malayalam film personalities in the wake of the Justice Hema Committee report.

The committee, which was formed in 2017 by the Kerala government, came out with a report in August, revealing instances of harassment and exploitation of women in the film industry. After names of actors and filmmakers cropped up in those cases, the state government announced a seven-member special investigation team.