KOCHI: A local court on Tuesday accepted the subsidiary charge sheet naming popular Malayalam actor Dileep as the eighth accused in the February 17 actor assault case. The Angamaly Magistrate Court accepted the 1,500-page charge sheet submitted by the Special Investigation Team (SIT) against five persons, including Dileep, in the court on November 22. Dileep has been slapped with conspiracy charge in the case. Among the witnesses, around 50 are from the film industry.

Dileep’s former wife and Malayalam actor Manju Warrier has been named as a witness in the case. It is also mentioned in the charge sheet that police had not been able to recover the original phone and memory card used to shoot the video of attack scenes.

Earlier, police had filed charge sheet arraigning seven people as accused in the case.

According to the prosecution, the actor-producer-entrepreneur hatched the conspiracy with main accused Pulsar Suni to abduct and assault the actor in a moving car and videotape the crime. The police claimed that Dileep developed a grudge against the actor for letting his former wife (Manju Warrier) know about his alleged ‘affair’ with another actor. The police had also decided to make the seventh witness Charley an approver. But he later backed off, which the police claim was the handiwork of one of Dileep’s advocates.

On October 3, Kerala High Court had granted bail to the actor after he spent 85 days in prison.

The popular actor was abducted on February 17 night when she was on her way from Thrissur to Kochi, forcibly driven around in her vehicle for about two hours and allegedly molested before being dumped near an actor-director’s home.

Suni and his accomplices involved in the actual abduction were arrested a week later.

Dileep had approached the court alleging that the police had leaked information from the charge sheet to the media.

On Tuesday, the Magistrate Court ordered to give copies of the charge sheet to all accused in the case. The court will issue summons to the accused soon. Once the accused appear before the court, the charge sheet will be handed over to Ernakulam Principal Sessions Court for trial proceedings. The Principal Sessions Judge will decide which court should conduct the trial proceedings.