Justice K. Hema Committee’s roller-coaster journey outpaces the darkest crime thriller movie. It took nearly five years for the committee’s report to see light, and that too in a redacted form, facing unending hurdles until literally, the last minute. Yet, even the truncated report has exposed—without mentioning any names—the widely-admired Malayalam film industry’s ugly underbelly, where women face extreme levels of sexual and other forms of exploitation, discrimination and persecution. The report, which had about 60 of its 300 pages deleted, ostensibly to protect the privacy of individuals, states that a criminal mafia consisting of top actors, directors, and producers dominates the industry.
Besides the report’s shocking contents, the recurrent attempts to suppress it and the State government’s indifference to act against perpetrators expose the deep-rooted links between the film industry’s underworld and the establishment.
Even after the committee appointed by it at an expense of over Rs.1 crore exposed the entrenched criminality and the gross violation of fundamental human rights, the previous and the present Left Democratic Front (LDF) governments sat on it for nearly five years. They consistently refused to release the report to the public or initiate action against the cognisable offences mentioned in it. This made the government lose some of the glory it gained for constituting a committee to investigate the problems faced by women in the film industry for the first time in the country.
According to Saji Cherian, the Minister for Culture, the report was not released until now only because of the advice of the State Public Information Officer (SPIO) and even the Hema Committee. The explanation was the release would harm the privacy and confidentiality of individuals who testified before the Committee. A.K. Balan, Minister for Culture in the last LDF government, which constituted the committee, said the outbreak of COVID-19 in 2020 also caused delays in processing the report, followed by objections from SPIO. Requests based on the right to information from the Women in Cinema Collective, which spearheaded the movement against exploitation in the film industry or the media, were initially rejected by the SPIO.
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When the Opposition United Democratic Front (UDF) protested in the State Assembly against the report not being tabled, Chief Minister Vijayan said the government was not legally bound to do so as the committee was not constituted under the Commission of Inquiries Act. Even without releasing the report, the State government formed another panel in 2022 to devise a plan to implement its recommendations, which also never materialised.
Things transformed on July 5 this year when, in response to a petition by five applicants including media organisations, the State Information Commissioner (SIC), A.A. Abdul Hakim, directed the government to release the report. The SIC ordered that no information should be withheld except that prohibited under the Right to Information (RTI) Act regarding the privacy of individuals. A month ago, the government handed over the report to the SIC. In its order, the SIC slammed the officials of the Culture Department for foiling the government’s purpose and good intentions behind the constitution of the Hema Committee. “This report comprises findings intended to course-correct and address the problems faced by women… It is not good for officials to conceal the contents of such a crucial report,” said the SIC in his order. The SIC directed the government to release the report by 4 P.M. on July 26.
When every hurdle appeared over, another one sprang unexpectedly. On July 24, the Kerala High Court issued an interim stay on the report’s release following a petition by film producer Sajimon Parayil. But on August 13, the High Court lifted the stay and ordered the report’s release within a week. But, three days later, the release met yet another roadblock when an actor, Ranjini, approached the High Court with a writ appeal against the report’s release, citing privacy concerns. She held that as a person deposed before the Committee, she had a right to see the report before it was released to ascertain that her privacy and confidentiality were not violated. However, on August 19, the High Court Division Bench directed Ranjini to approach the single bench with a writ petition, not an appeal, as she was not a party in the case. Ranjini immediately rushed with a writ petition but was dismissed by the single bench on technical grounds, finally clearing all hurdles for the release on January 19.
Members of Women in Cinema Collective speak during a press conference in Kochi on October 13, 2018. | Photo Credit: Thulasi Kakkat / The Hindu
However, even after the release, the government’s dilly-dallying continued. Instead of concrete action against the cognisable criminal offences revealed in the report, Cherian announced a conclave to work out plans to implement the recommendations. He expressed an inability to initiate action against the alleged perpetrators without formal complaints or their names.
Legal experts dismiss this as another excuse because the government can initiate suo motu action against sexual offenders under the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013. The UDF and BJP have called for immediate action against perpetrators and slammed the government for sitting on it for nearly five years.
The sordid history
The attempts to shield the culprits and isolate the victim have been visible from the beginning. The sordid saga started with the abduction, assault and rape inside a vehicle of a prominent actor on the midnight of February 17, 2019. The entire operation was videographed by the culprits, ostensibly to blackmail the actor. Soon, the incident surfaced in the media and stunned the State. Charges also arose that prominent film industry members helped the prime suspect, “Pulsar” Sunil Kumar, a driver and a trusted aide to many of them, escape arrest. However, a week later, Kumar was arrested; he became the first accused in the case.
Though the incident shocked Kerala and filled the media, the top members of the film industry and the political establishment remained strangely silent. The exception was P.T. Thomas, a Congress legislator from Thrikkakara, where the crime occurred, who met the traumatised actor after the incident to console and support her. Thomas, who passed away two years later, wrote a letter to Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, raising many suspicions about the police investigation of the case. He told a TV channel that Loknath Behera, the then Director General of Police, was manipulating the investigation. He alleged that the police arrested Kumar forcibly in the court, just before he surrendered before the judge to silence him from revealing some shocking truths. According to Thomas, Kumar had close connections with powerful people and even human trafficking.
Kumar’s arrest put prominent actor Dileep, who was close to the former, under a cloud. Subsequently, a letter Kumar wrote to Dileep from custody revealed their links and hinted at the star’s alleged involvement in the crime. Later, Dileep came out in the open to take on the media for “insinuating” him and filed a police complaint.
In May, the survivor’s female friends in the Malayalam film industry formed the Women in Cinema Collective (WCC) to support her. Led by Dileep’s estranged wife and top actor Manju Warrier, director Anjali Menon, editor Beena Paul and others, the WCC met Chief Minister Vijayan and submitted a petition requesting prompt action in the sexual assault case.
Conspicuously silent
Subsequently, Dileep issued a surprising statement alleging that the survivor and her tormentor, Kumar, were past friends who had once travelled to Goa together. This made the survivor break her silence for the first time as she issued a statement threatening legal action against Dileep. The last week of June witnessed the first police step against Dilip when he was interrogated following the surfacing of audio clips connecting him with Kumar. Police also raided the boutique run by Dileep’s wife and actor, Kavya Madhavan, in Kochi. This was reportedly after Kumar told the police that he had deposited a memory card there with the survivor’s photographs.
Even when the issue was creating a storm in the State, conspicuously silent was AMMA (The Association of Malayalam Movie Artistes), the 500-member premier organisation of all actors in the Malayalam film industry. The media and WCC members constantly questioned AMMA’s ostrich-like attitude and called it a misogynist body led by superstars like Mammootty, Mohanlal and Dileep, who was its treasurer. Four months after the incident, AMMA broke its silence to condemn the assault on the actor and made Dileep apologise for making a statement against her. However, WCC members pooh-poohed it as another tactic to shield the culprits.
Things reached a new dimension on July 10 when Dileep was arrested and charged with criminal conspiracy and later made the 8th accused in the case. The next day, AMMA met at General Secretary Mammootty’s residence and expelled Dileep for being arrested in a criminal case. Shortly after, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan announced the constitution of a three-member expert committee headed by K. Hema, a former Kerala High Court Judge, to investigate the complaints of discrimination and exploitation faced by women in the film industry mentioned in the petition submitted by WCC. Other members were prominent actor Sarada and KB Valsalakumari, a retired IAS officer. Vijayan received wide praise for this decision, which was unprecedented in India.
Dileep received bail in October 2017, after which AMMA decided to reinstate him in June 2018 after Mohanlal took over as president. This led to a furore in the media as four WCC members—Geethu Mohandas, Rima Kallingal, Remya Nambisan, and the survivor—resigned in protest. This led to a volte-face by AMMA which made Dileep resign. WCC lamented that “AMMA” was biased in favour of its sons and was a stepmother to its daughters. Some writers and directors such as Ashique Abu protested the move to reinduct Dileep. Writer N.S. Madhavan tweeted, “worst #Metoo incident happened not in Holywood but in Kerala” and called AMMA a group of “male chauvinist pigs”. WCC said that even before the assault took place, the survivor had been denied roles in films at Dileep’s behest to spite the former’s friendship with his estranged wife, Manju Warrier. WCC maintains that its other members have also been denied industry opportunities ever since they formed the group.
The assault case took three years to reach the trial stage following various objections raised by Dileep. In May 2019, the Supreme Court even stayed the commencement of trial, which was vacated only in November. When the in-camera trial proceedings finally began in January 2020 in the Additional Special Sessions Court in Kochi, the courtroom witnessed the survivor breaking down when narrating her traumatic experience. All the 10 accused, including Dileep, were in the court with the star backed by 13 lawyers. The survivor later found the trial court judge hostile and biased against her. However, the High Court and later the Supreme Court rejected her request to change the judge. The State Police’s Crime Branch’s petition to revoke Dileep’s bail because he was influencing the witnesses was rejected by the High Court in February. The five-year-long trial continues in the Ernakulam Sessions Court.
M.G. Radhakrishnan, a senior journalist based in Thiruvananthapuram, has worked with various print and electronic media organisations.
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