On December 8, a Sessions court in Ernakulam, Kerala, will pronounce the verdict in the case of a well-known south Indian actor who was sexually assaulted in Kochi in 2017. The trial has reached its denouement after eight years of twists and turns, amid intense media scrutiny and industry-wide debate about gender, power, and accountability.

On February 17, 2017, the woman actor was abducted and sexually assaulted in a moving car in Kochi, an attack that was allegedly orchestrated by her industry colleague, Dileep, one of Malayalam cinema’s most prominent actors.

The case has since seen multiple arrests, a complex investigation, hundreds of witness testimonies, and repeated petitions over access to and verification of digital evidence.

For those trying to make sense of nearly a decade of

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