A Catholic bishop in India has denied media reports that he had a hand in securing bail for a film actor charged with sexual abuse and assault on an actress in the southern state of Kerala.
Local media reports said Bishop Vincent Samuel of Neyyattinkara helped actor Gopalakrishnan Padmanabhan, better known by his stage name Dileep, to secure bail.
The reports quoted the affidavit Dileep had furnished in Kerala High Court during the hearing of a petition filed by the prosecution seeking cancellation of his bail. Police wanted him in judicial custody for further questioning in the three-year-old case.
Dileep, 54, claimed in his affidavit that a film director named Balachandra Kumar had told him that Kumar had used the influence of Bishop Samuel to secure the bail.
“It is totally a false and manipulated story and there is no iota of truth in it,” Father Christudas, vicar general of Neyyattinkara Diocese, told on Jan. 26.
“The prelate neither knows the actor nor the director, nor ever had any interaction with them,” he added.