Thiruvananthapuram: Veteran Malayalam actor Mohanlal on Saturday spoke out on the ongoing sexual abuse allegations that have rocked the Malayalam film industry, saying any wrongdoers should be punished if there is concrete evidence against them.
Mohanlal also lauded the Kerala government’s decision to release the Justice Hema Committee report, which has brought to light numerous accounts of sexual harassment and abuse within the industry.
“Releasing the Hema Committee report was a good decision by the government,” he said.
Mohanlal asserted that he’s neither a part of “any power group” in the Malayalam film industry nor aware of the existence of any such group.
The Hema Committee report, which was made public last week, has sparked widespread protests in Kerala, with female actors coming forward with harrowing stories of abuse by well-known figures in the industry. The report, which had been kept under wraps for five years, has exposed the persistent sexual harassment faced by women in Malayalam cinema, leading to a public outcry and demands for accountability.
In the wake of the report’s release, Mohanlal and other office-bearers of AMMA (Association of Malayalam Movie Artists) resigned en masse, taking moral responsibility for the allegations and the association’s failure to adequately address the issue.
He said Malayalam cinema is a huge industry where thousands of people work and the actors’s association AMMA could not address issues that cropped up there.
“Wrongdoers should be punished if there is evidence against them,” the “Kireedam” actor said.
It was for the first time that Mohanlal, former president of AMMA, was addressing the media following the release of the expert panel report.
The Justice Hema Committee was established in 2019 following the high-profile 2017 actress assault case involving actor Dileep. The report highlights the widespread nature of sexual harassment in the Malayalam film industry, with several women revealing that they were subjected to unwanted advances, intimidation, and threats while working on film sets.
