In a letter to Kerala Chief Minister Pinaravi Vijayan, the Malayalam actress who survived abduction and assault earlier in February asked searching questions about the safety of women, and the victim blaming she had to deal with upon filing her complaint, specifically from MLA PC George.
The letter was posted on the Women In Cinema Collective Facebook page.
PC George had said, “If she [the actress] had been attacked, how come she could shoot the next day?”
In the letter, the actress says she felt pressured by such insults, but continued to fight as it was a collective fight of all women in her situation. She said George’s comment was false, as she had been unable to work for 10 days because of the trauma of the assault, and only rejoined work with the support of her colleagues.
She further asked what an assaulted woman’s proper behaviour was supposed to be, according to PC George – suicide or being locked in a mental asylum?
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She said that the MLA’s statement had encouraged others to support the accused, and the public perception created by attitudes like his was worrisome for the safety of women. She said that women who had faced similar incidents stay silent because of people like PC George.
She also said that the MLA had taunted the Women’s Commission, an institution set up to protect the rights of women like her, and threatened that “they [the Women’s Commission] would not only lose their nose, but also something else”.
She thus asked the Chief Minister to intervene in the issue, saying, “No assaulted woman should be publicly insulted in this way.”
Image Courtesy: Livekeralanews.com