Governing body members of AMMA including president Mohanlal quit, more actors may face cases

The entire leadership of Association of Malayalam Movie Artists (AMMA), including its president and famed actor Mohanlal, have decided to quit in view of the sexual allegations against many in the leadership.

AMMA general secretary Siddique has already resigned in view of sexual allegations and joint secretary Baburaj is facing allegations. 

A statement issued by AMMA on Tuesday said that the executive committee decided to resign taking moral responsibility for the sexual allegations against some of its members. It will remain as an ad hoc committee to run the routine affairs of the association until a new executive committee is elected in two months.

There were reports that the 17 member executive committee decided to quit as a whole as there could be chances of more sexual assault allegations coming up against its members in the coming days.

The Kerala High Court had already sought the entire copy of the justice Hema committee report, which is learnt to be containing many instances of sexual assaults suffered by women even from well known actors.

Mohanlal was elected unopposed as president for a third consecutive term in June. AMMA, which has 506 members, is one of the prominent bodies in the Malayalam film industry. Many women members of AMMA had quit in 2017 accusing the association of not taking stringent action against actor Dileep who was accused of abducting and sexually assaulting a known south Indian actress to settle personal scores.

More in the dock

Police cases are likely to be registered against more film personalities, including actor turned CPM MLA M Mukesh and AMMA joint secretary Baburaj.

While actor Minu Muneer was learnt to have sent police complaint against Mukesh, Jayasurya, 'Maniyanpillai' Raju, 'Idavela' Babu and three others, a junior actor reportedly sent police complaint against Baburaj and director Sreekumar Menon. All of them had denied the allegations.

A meeting of the special investigation team comprising women IPS officers decided to take over all cases being registered in connection with the sexual allegations against film personalities. A case was already registered against filmmaker and actor Ranjith on the basis of Bengali actor Sreelekha Mitra's complaint. Steps to record Mitra's statement were being taken, police sources said.

Despite pressure from the Congress, BJP and even from within the left-front for Mukesh's resignation from MLA post, the CPM continues to back him by citing that the allegations were yet to be proved. Mukesh said in a statement that Muneer earlier demanded money from him and used to blackmail him and the present 'baseless allegation' of sexual assaults was sequel to it.