“Fighting for justice is never that easy,” said the south Indian actor — a survivor in the 2017 abduction and assault case — on Sunday while breaking her silence in a programme anchored by senior journalist Barkha Dutt.
She shared her experience in a 30-minute programme on Mojo TV (The Global Townhall), without getting into details of the case. Narrating her ordeal, she said that she “felt alone in life but later got enough support and will take the case it its logical end... to prove her innocence and dignity.”
“I don’t like to be known as a victim, I am a survivor. There were difficult moments in life and at one point I even thought of withdrawing the compliant. Many dubbed me the accused and some even said it was a cooked up case,” she told Dutt.“My whole life turned upside down after the incident. At times I used to blame myself but later I realised that I did not do any wrong. Hounded initially, I realised that I should prove my innocence,” she said, adding that there were concerted efforts to keep her away from the film industry after the incident.
“I am still scared. In 2020 I was in the court for 15 days, from morning to evening. Every second I spent in the court, I was trying to prove that I am innocent. The cross examination was a harrowing experience, I was devastated. I thought of dropping the case. But later I thought it should be a fight for dignity and justice, not for me alone. At one point, seven lawyers tried to cross-examine me. Many women have gone through similar trauma and my message to them is that I will fight till the end without worrying about the outcome,” she said.
{{/usCountry}}“I am still scared. In 2020 I was in the court for 15 days, from morning to evening. Every second I spent in the court, I was trying to prove that I am innocent. The cross examination was a harrowing experience, I was devastated. I thought of dropping the case. But later I thought it should be a fight for dignity and justice, not for me alone. At one point, seven lawyers tried to cross-examine me. Many women have gone through similar trauma and my message to them is that I will fight till the end without worrying about the outcome,” she said.
{{/usCountry}}Without taking any names, she said the perpetrators of such crime bounce back to normalcy very fast but it is not the case with the survivor. “Victims find it hard to piece together their life. My fight is also for them,” the 35-year-old actor said.
She said her five-year journey after the incident was tough. “Once I got a mail asking me to die. Hate mails were abound and I felt broken but my quest for justice and truth kept me motivated,” she said during the interview. The actor said that she was grateful to those who stood with her especially the Women Collective in Cinema (WCC), an organisation that came up after the 2017 incident. Many women activists and WCC members have lauded the interview. “Perpetrator of such crimes should hide behind veils not survivor like her,” said film editor Bina Paul.
The actor was abducted and assaulted in a moving vehicle in Kochi in 2017 and Malayalam actor Dileep is arraigned as an accused in the case. He is out on bail and the gang members who executed the crime are behind bars. After the incident the state government had constituted a one-man commission under retired judge justice Hema to study the alleged “exploitation, indifferent attitude and victimisation of women” in Malayalam cinema. Later the government refused to make the report public. Industry insiders said that there were shocking details of exploitation in that report and it even blamed some of the superstars.