Arrest warrant issued against Vijay Babu, red corner notice to follow

Kochi: The legal noose is tightening around absconding Malayalam film actor-cum-producer Vijay Babu over a sexual harassment case. The local court here has issued an arrest warrant against him as a prelude to issuing a Red Corner Notice (RCN).

A Red Corner Notice is issued by law enforcers of a country to seek the arrest or provisional arrest of wanted criminals with the intention of extradition.

Following the issuance of the arrest warrant, photographs of Vijay Babu along with the case details in which he is an accused will appear on the website of the International Criminal Police Organisation (Interpol) in the coming days.

Once a red corner notice is issued, Dubai Police will be able to legally detain the actor and extradite him to India. However, the police are not ruling out the chances of Vijay Babu crossing over to some other country, which does not have an agreement with India regarding handing over of the accused in criminal cases.

The move by the police to issue a red corner notice would affect the OTT release of the films in which Vijay Babu is associated. OTT platforms that have foreign collaborations usually do not purchase or screen films with which the accused in a sexual harassment case is associated.

The police probe team received legal advice to hand over a copy of the arrest warrant against Vijay Babu to OTT platforms such as Amazon Prime and Netflix.

Hindi actor Nawazuddin Siddiqui, who was co-accused in a domestic violence case in which his brother was the main accused, faced a ban from OTT platforms even after he received bail in the case.

Only after Siddiqui was acquitted by the court, various OTT platforms agreed to buy the movies in whih which he acted.