'Room boy gently caressed her legs..'; director Alleppey Ashraf's shocking revelation about WCC founding member

Prominent film director Alleppey Ashraf ignited a debate after revealing a little-known story about a founding member of 'Women in Cinema Collective' (WCC). Ashraf revealed that the actress kept the incident secret from the media and public. The director talked about the incident through his YouTube channel “Kandathum Kettathum”.

Alleppey Ashraf:

“WCC were the torchbearers of the women's movement in Malayalam cinema. They put forward issues alerting women artists, about the difficult workplace environment and struggles and even turned the catalyst for the release of the Hema committee report. They deserve all praise.

But one actress who was part of WCC testified to the committee and downplayed rumours of sexual assault and casting couch in Malayalam cinema. She later wriggled out of the organization. It seemed that she was not even aware of the infamous actress kidnapping issue of 2017 or willfully kept a blind eye to it.

But she was no small fish in the sea of Mollywood. Many were puzzled by the stance taken by this actress because they knew that her statement had no truth in it. Her exit from WCC did not hurt the organization in any way. But interestingly, the assault faced by some founding members of WCC has still not seen the light of the day. Let me narrate a real-life incident.

A founding member of WCC once visited Alleppey and stayed in a hotel. The room boy was a teen and the actress showed brotherly love to him. They were in great rapport. One day, the room boy took advantage of this compassion and took a spare key to enter her room. The actress was sleeping and the boy started navel-gazing at her. Soon he caressed her legs and it woke her up. She was startled and saw the stunned face of the boy.

In fear, the room boy ran away while the actress trailed him out of the room. A commotion ensued and the hotel staff were alerted. Police soon arrested the room boy and even I had the chance to read the FIR. But the actress soon withdrew the case in fear of embarrassment. She even gave orders to the police and the hotel owners to not leak the issue to the media or public.

She even didn’t raise the issue in WCC or any forum. Just imagine what would have happened if it was not a room boy but some other actor from her film set. A big controversy would have ensued with media headlines everywhere citing the accused. “