Palakkad: Actor Sreejith Ravi, who has performed villain roles in many Malayalam films, was arrested on Friday on the charge of behaving indecently with some school girls last month. Sreejith, son of veteran actor T.G. Ravi, was picked up by the Ottappalam police on Thursday from a film shooting location at Pallavur here and was charged with sections of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 (POCSO) and IPC. The charges include exhibitionism, uttering lewd comments and clicking the photographs of a group of school girls.
His arrest was recorded on Friday morning and he was produced before the Palakkad Additional Sessions Court- I which granted him conditional bail on a bond of Rs 1 lakh. The court also asked him to surrender his passport and present himself before the investigating officer every Thursday. Though the students of a prominent school at Pathiripala in Ottapalam had filed a complaint with Ottappalam police on August 27, the police allegedly tried to hush-up the case. It was only after the parents of the girls took up the matter with the district police chief and the district collector that the police recorded the statement of more than 15 girls on Friday afternoon by sending civil women police officers to the school.
Palakkad SP A. Srinivasan told DC that the allegations of police laxity would be inquired into and that Ottappalam SI was investigating the case. The girls and their parents had handed over the registration number of the Duster car in which the actor allegedly came and showed them his private parts. The verification of the vehicle number found that the car belonged to the actor. The students identified the actor’s photograph which prompted his arrest. However, the actor denied the allegations and said he had explained his version to the police. “The number of the car provided by the girls is mine. But I was not involved in any such incident. The girls might have mistakenly noted down the car's number,” Sreejith said.
