As the Hema committee report opened a can of worms in the Malayalam film industry, a man, who does not want his name to be revealed, has come forward and accused Mollywood filmmaker Ranjith of sexually harassing him. He has also filed a complaint against him with the police now, 12 years after the harrowing incident.
According to a report in Onmanorama, the victim, who hails from Kozhikode in Kerala, told the cops that Ranjith sexually abused him at a five-star hotel in Bengaluru in 2012. He stated that Ranjith spotted him during the shoot of Bavuttiyude Namathil, which starred superstar Mammootty, and passed him his phone number by writing it on a piece of tissue paper.
"I met him at a five-star hotel in Bengaluru. He asked me to get naked, saying he wanted to see how I looked. He said my eyes were beautiful and asked me to do my eyebrows. I cannot say the things he did to me now," the victim told a local media portal on condition of anonymity.
The victim shared that he wanted to pursue movies back then but the incident left him scarred, and Ranjith too evaded him later.
For those unversed, Ranjith was amongst the first ones whose name cropped up in the Malayalam #MeToo row after Bengali actress Sreelekha Mitra lodged a police complaint against him, claiming he touched her inappropriately.
After the accusation came to light, Ranjith resigned as the Kerala Chalachitra Academy Chairman on August 25.
As several actresses accused Malayalam actors and filmmakers of sexual assault at workplace, superstar Mohanlal resigned as the president of the Association of Malayalam Movie Artists (AMMA) on Tuesday, August 27, along with all the members of the executive committee.
A new committee will now be formed within two months and a stringent investigation has been ordered to verify the findings of the Hema report.
