Judges’ panel to look into #MeToo cases
The government announced it will form a committee of judges to advise it on cases of sexual assault and harassment reported widely after a #MeToo movement swept the country.
The panel of senior judicial and legal figures will “examine all issues emanating from the #MeTooIndia movement”, the women and child development ministry said yesterday.
“The panel will look into the legal and institutional framework that is in place for handling complaints of sexual harassment and advise the ministry on how to strengthen these frameworks.
“I believe in the pain and trauma behind every single complaint. Cases of sexual harassment at work must be dealt with a policy of zero tolerance (sic),” minister Maneka Gandhi said about the campaign.
Comedians, authors, actors, film-makers and journalists, including junior Foreign Minister M J Akbar, formerly an editor, have been outed on Twitter in the recent days as alleged culprits.
Neither the foreign ministry nor Akbar, who is on an overseas tour, has responded to the allegations.
Some of the charges have led to inquiries and resignations in the media.
The #MeToo campaign gathered pace over the last fortnight after actress Tanushree Dutta’s claimed that she was harassed by her colleague Nana Patekar on the set of a 2008 film.
The growing #MeToo storm yesterday halted production of a Bollywood blockbuster, with the film’s lead calling for harassment claims against its director and his co-star to be “stringently” investigated.
Star Akshay Kumar said he had requested that the making of Housefull 4 be stopped following allegations against director Sajid Khan and one of the film’s actors, Nana Patekar.
Accusations that Patekar behaved inappropriately on a film set 10 years ago sparked India’s #MeToo movement. Patekar denies the allegations.
“I’ve requested the producers (of Housefull 4)...to cancel the shoot until further investigation. This is something that requires stringent action,” Akshay said on Twitter.
“I will not work with any proven offenders and all those who have been subjugated to harassment should be heard and given the justice they deserve,” the 51-year-old actor added.
Sajid, 46, tweeted his own statement shortly afterwards to announce that he was stepping down from the film “until the time I can allay the allegations and prove the truth”.
Three women, an actor, an assistant director and a journalist took to Twitter on Thursday to accuse Khan of sexual harassment.
Akshay’s statement came two days after Bollywood power couple Aamir Khan and his film-maker wife Kiran Rao announced that they were withdrawing from the film Mogul over a molestation case against director Subhash Kapoor. Kapoor denies the charges. Akshay and Aamir’s interventions are being lauded for possibly signalling a watershed moment in Bollywood, where established male stars rarely speak out in support of victims.
Some actresses have long said that the industry, which is dominated by a few powerful players, needs to create an environment where victims can come forward without fear of being ostracised.
Filmmakers Anurag Kashyap and Vikramaditya Motwane announced at the weekend they were severing ties with Bollywood director Vikas Bahl over a sexual assault allegation.
Bahl denies that he sexually assaulted a female employee of Phantom Films, the production house behind Netflix original Sacred Games, in 2015 and has threatened to sue Kashyap and Motwane for defamation.