A seven-member Special Investigation Team (SIT) team, with four women IPS officers, has been constituted to conduct a probe into the allegations of sexual abuse in the Malayalam film industry. The team will be led by Crime Branch IG Sparjan Kumar, and supervised by Crime Branch additional DGP H Venkitesh.
Besides Sparjan Kumar, the team members include S Ajitha Begum DIG, Merin Joseph, SP Crime Branch HQ, G Poonkuzhali, AIG, Coastal Police, Aishwarya Dongre, assistant director, Kerala Police Academy, Ajith V, AIG (law & order), and S Madhusoodanan (SP, Crim Branch).
The SIT was formed after Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan held a high-level meeting with the top police brass in Kerala on Sunday, August 25.
The Kerala government's initial stand was that it would not take a case on its own against the sexual predators identified in the Hema Commission report. The argument was that the part of the report that was published was general in nature, and not specific, and therefore it was not possible to register cases.
Nonetheless, the Chief Minister had said that the government would take appropriate action if any women in the film industry came forward with a complaint. After the High Court directed the government to submit the entire Hema Commission report, both the published and unpublished parts, the government said it would abide by whatever the court said. It looked like the government was waiting for the court to show away.
However, catching the government off guard, women started to reveal names of tormentors. Noted West Bengal actress Sreelekha Mitra revealed that filmmaker and Chalachithra Academy chairman Ranjith behaved inappropriately with her in 2009. A junior artist named Revathy Sampath accused A.M.M.A general secretary Siddique of outrageous sexual misbehaviour when she was a teenager. The charge could potentially attract the POCSO (Protection of Children from Sexual Offences) Act, leading to even an immediate arrest of Siddique.
Both Ranjith and Siddique had resigned from their posts. Now, a former allegation of sexual abuse against CPM MLA M Mukesh has also resurfaced. With complaints piling up, the government had no choice but to form a team to at least record the complaints of victims.
Two things are still unclear. One, in addition to recording the statements of victims who are willing to testify, will the SIT take cognisance of the allegations recorded by the Hema Commission? The Women in Cinema Collective (WCC) has already expressed its concern that the SIT could be intimidating for some of the victims.
Two, has the SIT been formed to conduct a 'preliminary inquiry' to ascertain the veracity of the complaints or whether it would register cases and start inquiry right away?
Top police sources said the SIT would first do a 'preliminary inquiry', and not a full-fledged probe into the allegations. However, there is no mention of a 'preliminary inquiry' in the press release announcing the formation of the SIT. It just says that an SIT had been formed to probe the "complaints and revelations" of abuse suffered by "some women in the film industry".
The fact is, in sexual abuse cases, the law has done away with the preliminary inquiry. The Supreme Court, in its landmark Lalita Kumari versus Government of UP and Others case in 2014, had stated that a preliminary inquiry could be conducted before an FIR is registered. However, this requirement was limited to just five cases: matrimonial or family disputes, commercial offences, medical negligence cases, corruption cases, and cases that lasted more than three months.
And this does not apply to complaints related to atrocities against women (assault, sexual harassment, voyeurism, stalking and, words, gestures or acts intended to insult the modesty of a woman). So if it is just a 'preliminary inquiry', the SIT is seen as an attempt to save, rather than punish.
