New Delhi — Police in the southern Indian state of Kerala have launched an investigation into allegations of rape against several popular film stars in the region’s Malayalam-language film industry. Cases have been filed against some of the biggest names in the industry after female actors started speaking out in a new revelation. The MeToo movement Triggered by a curse Official report which revealed the culture of sexual exploitation in the Kerala entertainment industry.
Allegations of sexual harassment have rocked the South Indian film business — which is separate from the Mumbai-based, Hindi-language film industry known as Bollywood — amid a wave of national outrage over the atrocity. Rape and murder of female doctor In the eastern city of Kolkata.
Kerala Police has launched at least 10 formal investigations into the accused sexual misconductFrom reports of rape to harassment against members of the Kerala film industry, including directors Vineeth (who uses only one name), Ranjith Balakrishnan and VK Prakash, and popular actors Siddique and Jayasurya (who uses only one name), Edavella Babu. Manyanpillai Raju and actor-politician M Mukesh.
Arun Chandrabose/AFP/Getty
Producer Noble Jacob and online movie reviewers Alain Jose and Santosh Varare are also named among those under investigation in the complaint received by the Kerala Police.
Police have so far registered cases based on 16 complaints, the force said on Thursday. Kerala Police Inspector General G Sparanjan Kumar, who heads the Special Investigation Team formed to probe the allegations, said a separate team would investigate each allegation.
According to the case registered against director Vineeth, he has been accused of raping an actor whom he had promised to cast in a film. The alleged rape took place at the female actor’s house in April.
Actor Jayasuriya was accused of harassing a colleague on the sets of a movie in 2008.
Neither Vineeth nor Jayasurya have spoken publicly about the allegations.
Siddique, accused of raping an actress in a hotel in 2016, resigned as general secretary of the Malayalam Movie Artistes Association on Sunday.
A female actor has accused director Ranjith of sexual harassment. On Sunday, he resigned as chairman of the Kerala State Film Academy of Malayalam Industry.
Both Siddique and Ranjith have denied the allegations leveled against them.
Arun Chandrabose/AFP/Getty
A female actor had accused actor-politician M Mukesh of forcing his way into her hotel room and raping her in 2013. The woman has also filed a sexual assault complaint against Jayasurya, Manyanpilla Raju and Edavela Babu. Mukesh called the case a bid to blackmail him and said he would take legal action against the accused.
Allegations of rape and sexual exploitation in Kerala’s film industry began to come to light after the state High Court ordered the release of an official report on behalf of the state authorities.
The Justice Hema Committee report was authored five years ago by a panel set up to examine issues of protection of women in the film industry after a leading female actor was abducted and sexually assaulted in February 2017. It was published only a few weeks ago by court order
The 290-page report, parts of which were redacted to conceal the identities of the survivors and those accused of the crime, called the Malayalam-language film industry “a mafia of powerful men” where sexual harassment of female artistes was “rampant… unchecked and unchecked.” ” “
“Many in the industry are led to believe that all women in the industry enter or are retained solely because of having sex with men in the industry,” the report said. “The men of the industry unabashedly demand sex openly as if it were their birthright. Women have little choice but to comply — or be denied at the cost of their long-awaited dream of pursuing cinema as a career.”
“Many women’s experiences are truly traumatic and of such gravity that they have not disclosed the details even to their closest family members,” the report said.