The verdict in the actor-assault case of 2017, delivered a few day back in the Ernakulam Principal Sessions Court, did not surprise anyone, except the extremely naive. Not just because of the difficulties in proving conspiracies, but also because the trial court seemed so unbelievably biased against the survivor all through and actually in favour of the accused. The man accused of conspiring against the female actor and hiring a gang of thugs to abduct and rape her in a moving vehicle, Dileep aka Gopalakrishnan, is an actor in the Malayalam industry. But he is also accused of being a notorious fixer in the Malayalam movie industry, the go-to person for people who want to get things done — someone who bends things to their will, cuts through all institutional procedure and safeguards using invisible chains of influence and violence. The verdict convicted the six men who actually committed the crime – and declared that the prosecution had not proven Dileep’s involvement in the crime. In other words, the man escaped for entirely technical reasons — or the blind spots of the law.