The names made this a headline. Athulya Chandra, 30, has appeared in films including Dies Irae and Uyir, and Bibin Perumpally is an actor and producer known for his role in Lokah. The complaint underneath is more serious than a celebrity scandal. It’s a doctor saying he was tricked into going somewhere and then hurt.
According to Onmanorama, a 41-year-old doctor was allegedly lured to an apartment in Kochi on the pretext of providing emergency medical care, then assaulted, confined and robbed of valuables worth ₹3.25 lakh by a group of people. That means the complaint rests on a call for medical help, which is the kind of call a doctor is least likely to refuse.
The FIR gets specific. It says Perumpally slapped the doctor on his left cheek, forced him into a chair and repeatedly punched him in the ribs, and that Chandra abused him in vulgar language and threatened to kill him. Those are the allegations in the police document, and they haven’t been tested in court.
Reports differ on what was taken. NDTV’s headline mentions a phone and a watch worth ₹3.5 lakh, The Week says two phones worth about ₹3 lakh, and Onmanorama and Deccan Chronicle say valuables worth ₹3.25 lakh. I’d treat the total as approximate until the police say more.
One detail stands out. The Week reports that the accused allegedly threatened to file a false police complaint claiming the doctor had tried to sexually assault a patient by giving drugs. That is also part of the doctor’s allegation, as reported. Nobody has established it, and nothing I found suggests the doctor did anything of the kind.
A Kerala Kaumudi headline calls the incident a suspected honey-trap case. I haven’t seen the underlying reporting, so I’d treat that as the outlet’s framing and not a police finding.
Police acted quickly. They took Chandra and Perumpally into custody on Thursday morning after a preliminary inquiry, and say they suspect the incident was planned, though the motive has not been established. The Week says three people in total were arrested, and the FIR lists 12 accused. So a large part of the group is not yet in custody, according to the reports I found.
Several important things aren’t clear. We don’t know how the doctor came to be contacted, whether he knew any of the accused, or why police believe it was planned. We don’t know who the other accused are or whether more arrests are coming. And we haven’t heard from the actors or their lawyers.
That last gap matters. In cases like this, early reports usually reflect the complainant’s account and the police’s FIR. The accused’s side often looks different once it’s heard. The magistrate’s hearing, and any bail application, will show more.
