The Kochi police on Friday have identified the men who harassed a Mollywood actor who was shopping at a mall in Kochi. The actor, on Thursday, had shared in a post on Instagram claiming that she was harassed by two men while shopping with her family at Lulu Mall, Kochi.
Officials of the Kalamassery police station, while talking to the media after checking the footage from the shopping mall, said that the men were identified and that they were youngsters. “They inappropriately touched her,” an official said. Though the actor hasn’t filed a police complaint yet, officials said that her statement would soon be taken.
Kerala Women’s Commission in protest against the act took suo motu cognisance of the issue. In a statement, commission chairperson MC Josephine said that officials would take the actor’s statement on Saturday. Meanwhile, the police have collected statements from the actor’s mother.
On Thursday night, the actor took to Instagram and wrote a note that one of the two men grazed her back while she was inside the hypermarket at the mall. “Because it caught me off guard, I couldn’t react immediately. I wanted to give him the benefit of a doubt but you know when something is just not right, you feel it,” she wrote.
Although the actor thought she had imagined it at first, her sister witnessed the incident too. The actor, who went blank for a minute trying to process the situation tried to confront the men but they disregarded her. “Though I made sure that they knew that I understood what had happened, I was still so angry because I couldn’t say anything,” the actor said.
Though she tried to confront the men, they disregarded her and went off. Following this, the men again stalked her and tried to strike a conversation. In the moving note, she urges women to confront such issues appropriately.
“Being a woman has been very tiring, to be on guard every minute as you step out of your house. To watch my clothes when I bend and turn; to guard my chest with my arms in a crowd. Moreover, on the days I’m home, I worry about my mother, my sister, my friends who have to do the same things. It is all because of these sick men. You take away our safety. You take away our comfort and the joy of our womanhood. I despise you,” the actor wrote.
