Should I Have Committed Suicide: Assaulted Malayalam Actress Asks Kerala CM

Kerala MLA PC George is no stranger to controversies. He has courted a new controversy by trying to defame the Malayalam actress, who was allegedly kidnapped and sexually assaulted in a moving car on February 17 this year.

George recently during a press meet attempted to question the credibility of the attack against the survivor. He said the police told the court that the attack was more “grievous than the Nirbhaya incident” and asked, “if then, how can she resume shooting for her films the next day?”

Upset by George’s comments, the survivor wrote an emotionally-charged open letter to Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan requesting to take action against George. The letter shared on the Women in Cinema Collective Facebook page show the grit and determination of the survivor to get justice for the crimes committed against her.

“I cannot explain the mental state I have been in for the last many months after the assault. I feel pressured by insults each moment. A common family like mine, which includes my mother and brother, could not tolerate what happened to me. But I survive out of the thought that I should not break down and should fight it out till the end,” the survivor wrote in the letter.

This was not the first time the survivor of this case had been subjected to victim-shaming or character assassination by some high-profile personalities in Kerala. Earlier, some of her colleagues in the industry had made some insensitive comments against her, while defending movie star Dileep, who has been accused of co-conspiring the attack against her.

“I held on strongly to my self-confidence and courage from the next day of the assault, only because I should not fail in this agitation. If I fail, I know it will be the failure of many women like me,” she said.

Responding to George’s comments that she returned to film sets the “very next day”, she said she sat in a room for a week. And it is because of the support and encouragement provided by some of her colleagues, that she was able to attempt to lead a normal life and return to the industry, 10 days after the incident.

“What do people like PC George think? Should I have committed suicide? Or should I have been dumped in a mental asylum? Or should I hide somewhere by not appearing in public?” she questioned.

The survivor also pointed out that many women who faced similar attacks don’t report the crimes fearing such ill-treatment meted out to them by people like George.

“The last time, he said in his statement: ‘are they (Women’s Commission) coming to cut my nose? If they fight against me they will lose not only their nose but also something else’. He says this against an institution, which is a hope for thousands of women like me, who seek justice,” she pointed out.

Reasserting her belief in the Chief Minister, she said no survivor of such attacks should be insulted in public like this.

Courtesy : indianexpress