Kochi, Jan 21 (PTI) The Kerala High Court will hear on Saturday the anticipatory bail plea filed by actor Dileep in a case registered against him and five others for allegedly threatening investigation officers probing the sexual assault of an actress back in 2017. Justice Gopinath P on Friday said a special sitting will be held in the high court on January 22 for the detailed hearing of the anticipatory bail plea filed by the actor. The Crime Branch wing of the Kerala police had on Thursday filed a statement in the high court opposing the anticipatory bail plea and said it was for the first time in the state"s history that a person accused of a serious offence hatched a criminal conspiracy to harm the life of investigating officers. Meanwhile, the Crime Branch had recently submitted a report before the Judicial First Class Magistrate court at Aluva, which is the trial court in the threatening case. The Crime Branch report said it had added Section 302 (murder) along with Section 120-B of the Indian Penal Code since the accused had conspired to murder the probe officers as per the first information statement. Besides Dileep, his younger brother — P Sivakumar — and brother-in-law — T N Suraj — have also moved the high court seeking the same relief. The Crime Branch had said that the allegations against Dileep and other petitioners are "very serious" and said custodial interrogation of the accused is required to unearth the criminal conspiracy hatched by them. The Crime Branch had on January 9 registered the case on a complaint filed by an investigating officer based on a purported audio clip of Dileep, which was released by a TV channel in which the actor was allegedly heard conspiring to attack the official. The actor and five others were booked under various provisions of the IPC, including Sections 116 (abetment), 118 (concealing design to commit offense), 120B (criminal conspiracy), 506 (criminal intimidation), and 34 (criminal act done by several people). The joint plea moved by all three has claimed that the complaint lodged against them by the officer — Deputy SP (Crime Branch) Baiju Paulose — was “false”. They have contended that the allegations in the FIR, registered on the base of the complaint, are "wholly false and baseless". The actor and his relatives have alleged, in the petition filed through advocate Philip T Varghese, that the intention behind registration of the case was to take them into custody and humiliate them before the public. This apprehension is borne out of the past conduct of the complainant officer who right from the start has been trying to falsely implicate the actor in the sexual assault case, the petition has alleged. The victim — an actress who has worked in Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam films — was abducted and allegedly molested inside her car for two hours by some of the accused, who had forced their way into the vehicle on the night of February 17, 2017 and later escaped in a busy area. The entire act was filmed by some of the accused to blackmail the actress. There are 10 accused in the case and initially, police arrested seven people. Dileep was arrested subsequently and released on bail later. PTI COR RRT RRT HDA HDA