The Malayalam film industry in Kerala is also under the very harsh spotlight due to the serious sexual harassment charges against their two leading stars, jayasurya and mukesh.
These allegations, which have rocked the industry, are a result of complaints filed by actress minu muneer, who claims to have been verbally and physically abused by several other actors and industry personnel on the sets of various films.
Kerala Police has filed an FIR against Mukesh, the CPI (M) MLA from Kollam constituency as well as they have stated on Thursday. The accusations against him include charges of trespassing and inappropriate behavior after allegedly entering a woman’s hotel room without permission.
Meanwhile, Jayasurya has been accused of sexually assaulting a female co-worker during the filming of the 2008 movie “De Ingottu Nokkiye.”. No, in fact in the Kerala Secretariat it allegedly happened, this girl claims she was harrassed, outside the john.
Under the leadership of DIG Ajitha Beegum and AIG G. Poonkuzhali of a Special Investigation Team(SIT) has already been launched and the first step taken, a 10 hour interrogation at the complainant’s home in kochi.
The cantonment police has booked the accused under various sections of IPC, (354 assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty), 354(A) (sexual harassment), 509 (word, gesture, or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman).
These accusations come when the malayalam film industry is in a bad light already. The most recent update is that director Ranjith and actor Siddique have also quit from the AMMA because of some accusations against them as well, so that has just made the whole mess that much worse.
That is even more underscored by the leak of the redacted Justice Hema Committee report, which of course delineates the sexual harassment and exploitation in film industry. And then it goes into talking about the ways of the very manly force that runs so much of the firm at the expense of the woman who is employed by it.
But because of so much public outcry and media attention kerala government says that they are establishing a special investigation team to investigate these claims further. Chief minister Pinarayi vijayan has promised that the team would do a detailed investigation so that the plight of women in malayalam film industry would be taken care of.