Nikhila Henry

The woman actor is of the view that Siddique should now be kept out of film sets for a long time. She also said that she has started facing a backlash again online for levelling the allegations.

'No man nor woman dare to utter any word which may offend anyone belonging to the power group, because such persons will be wiped off,' says the Hema Committee report

With the Justice Hema Committee report revealing rampant sexual misconduct in the Malayalam film industry, the entire 17-member executive committee of AMMA, including its president and superstar actor Mohanlal, resigned from their posts on Tuesday.

The committee started out by issuing a “public notice” in a Malayalam daily in 2017, inviting people associated with cinema to depose before its members.

Long hours, poor pay, rampant exploitation: Report on the problems faced by the actors

A make-up artist who woke up at night to see a stranger in her room; an assistant director who says it is “common to be approached for sexual favours”; a woman director who was once mistaken for a hairstylist on the sets. With the Hema Committee report setting off a storm in the Kerala film industry, NIKHILA HENRY travels to Kochi to find a cloak of silence slowly lifting

The 72 signatories of the letter include actors Prakash Raj, Aparna Sen and Swara Bhaskar, singer Chinmayi Sripaada, writer-activist Arundhati Roy, senior advocates Vrinda Grover and Indira Jaisingh, and Malayalam writers Sarah Joseph, KR Meera and NS Madhavan, among others.

The release of a redacted Justice K Hema Committee report in 2024, nearly five years after it was formed by the Kerala government to study the problems of women in the industry, has instilled a new-found energy and confidence in those from oppressed communities.

With the report revealing rampant sexual misconduct in the Malayalam film industry and with fingers pointing at senior AMMA members, the executive committee, including president Mohanlal, had resigned from their posts on August 27.

In a rare change of guard at the top of the state’s bureaucracy, Muraleedharan took over from her husband Dr V Venu, who retired as Chief Secretary on August 31.