Actors and directors in the Indian Malayalam film industry are being accused of sexual abuse, including rape

New Delhi — Police in the southern Indian state of Kerala have launched an investigation into rape allegations against several popular film stars from the region’s Malayalam-language film industry. Cases have been filed against some of the industry’s biggest names after female actors began speaking out in the latest wave of the MeToo movement sparked by a damning government report exposing a culture of sexual exploitation in Kerala’s entertainment industry.

The allegations of sexual abuse have rocked the South Indian film industry, 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 misconductranging from reports of rape to harassment, targeting 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.

Producer Noble Jacob and online film critics Alain Jose and Santhosh Varkey are also among those being investigated following the allegations received by the Kerala police.

The cases were filed based on 16 complaints received by the police so far, police said on Thursday. Kerala Police Inspector General G Sparjan Kumar, who heads the special investigation team formed to probe the allegations, said a separate team would look into each complaint.

According to the case filed against director Vineeth, he is accused of raping an actor to whom he had promised a role in a film. The alleged rape allegedly took place in April at the female actor’s house.

Actor Jayasurya is accused of groping a colleague on the set of a film in 2008.

Neither Vineeth nor Jayasurya have spoken publicly about the allegations.

Siddique, who is accused of raping an actress in a hotel in 2016, resigned as secretary general of the Association of Malayalam Movie Artists on Sunday.

Director Ranjith has been accused of sexual misconduct by a female actor and resigned as the chairman of the Kerala State Chalachitra Academy of the Malayalam industry on Sunday.

Both Siddique and Ranjith deny the allegations against them.

A woman actor has accused actor-politician M Mukesh of forcibly entering her hotel room and raping her in 2013. The woman has also filed sexual assault complaints against Jayasurya, Maniyanpilla Raju and Edavela Babu. Mukesh has termed the case as an attempt to blackmail him and said he will take legal action against the complainant.

The allegations of rape and sexual exploitation in Kerala’s film industry came to light after the state High Court ordered the disclosure of a formal report prepared on behalf of state authorities.

The Justice Hema Committee report was prepared five years ago by a panel set up to investigate the safety of women in the film industry, following the abduction and sexual assault of a leading female actor in February 2017. It was released only a few weeks ago following a court order.

The 290-page report, parts of which were redacted to hide the identities of survivors and those accused of crimes, called the Malyalam-language film industry “a mafia of powerful men” where sexual harassment of female artistes was “rampant… unchecked and uncontrolled”.

“Many in the industry are led to believe that all women in the industry only get into or stay in the industry because they have sex with men in the industry,” the report said. “Men in the industry openly make demands for sex without any scruples, as if it were their birthright. Women have few options but to comply — or refuse at the cost of their long-held dream of making a career in cinema.”

“The experiences of many women are truly shocking and so serious that they have not even shared the details with their closest relatives,” the report said.