Actors and directors in India's Malayalam movie industry face sexual assault allegations, including rape

Actors and directors in India’s Malayalam movie industry face sexual assault allegations, including rape

August 30, 2024 Benjamin Hughes

New Delhi — Police in India’s southern state of Kerala have opened investigations into allegations of rape against several popular movie stars from the region’s Malayalam language film industry. Cases have been registered against some of the industry’s biggest names after female actors started speaking out in a new manifestation of the MeToo movement triggered by a damning government report that revealed a culture of sexual exploitation in Kerala’s entertainment industry.

The sexual assault allegations 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 brutal rape and murder of a female doctor in the eastern city of Kolkata.

Kerala police have opened at least 10 formal investigations into alleged sexual misconduct, ranging from reports of rape to harrassment, against members of Kerala’s film industry, including directors Vineeth (who uses only one name), Ranjith Balakrishnan and VK Prakash, and popular actors Siddique and Jayasurya (who also use only one name), Edavela Babu, Maniyanpillai Raju and actor-politician M Mukesh.

INDIA-CINEMA-ASSAULT-WOMEN — Indian National Congress (INC) party workers wear masks of celebrities from the country’s Kerala-based Malayalam-language movie industry during a protest against the government’s actions over alleged sexual allegations within the industry, in Kochi, India, Aug. 30, 2024.

ARUN CHANDRABOSE/AFP/Getty

Producer Noble Jacob and online movie reviewers Alain Jose and Santhosh Varkey have also been named among those under investigation over the accusations received by the Kerala police.

Source: cbsnews.com