The #MeToo campaign, a social movement which began in the year 2018, had left the entire nation in a state of shock with many women sharing their stories about abuse by men in positions of power. As #Metoo movement continues to gain strength in India, especially in the art and media circles, women are coming up with shocking allegations about sexual harassment at their workspaces. While the movie had earlier exposed many big names in the Mollywood film industry, now popular actor Aneesh Menon has been called out for his alleged inappropriate behaviour towards a girl, who was once his mono-act student. According to her note on a social media platform, the Drishyam fame actor used to sexually molest her on the pretext of teaching.

"He was liked by everybody, in general. He used to express affection by pulling my cheeks. Soon, I started feeling uneasy about his behaviour. But he began to take more freedom with me, touched and grabbed my body parts saying that it was to correct my positions and to make the postures more beautiful. “To correct my chest position”, once he reached down under my top and pressed my breast. It really hurt. This happened several times since then. Once during a training session, I said some excuse to him, went to my mom and asked her to sit with me during the training. But she dismissed me by saying that Aneesh would need his space to teach. He could convince my parents that it was all part of the training," says the survivor.

"I was really scared after that. I started feeling that he was doing these things to abuse me and not to teach me anything. If I said anything to my family, they would scold me saying that I was imagining things. Once, when I told them that an elder guy was staring at me and that it scared me, they said, “why are you looking at him? That’s how you saw him looking at you.” I didn’t have the courage to tell anyone about Aneesh’s behaviour. What if this was the way to teach mono-act? I even doubted myself that maybe I was imagining all this. Later, whenever he called my home, he used to speak to me too. His conversations were filled with passive references to sex. This made me feel very uncomfortable; I was terribly afraid and in shock," she further added.

The girl also recounted a horrifying incident when she had to practice a romantic scene with Aneesh. "There was a romantic scene in that act. He approached me and said I was not getting the expressions right at that point. Then he held both my hands and began forcefully kissing my neck and all. Then several times during the training session, he held me against the wall and forcefully kissed me and pressed my breasts. I couldn’t stop him. I couldn’t even cry. When I was about to cry, he bit my lips. Finally, his hand went down into my panties and when he pulled it out, he kissed and licked his hand in front of me. All I could do was to cry out aloud. I wept uncontrollably and called my parents. When she asked me what happened, I told her that I had stomach pain. I was afraid of him. When I reached my room, I told mom that I didn’t want to learn mono-act any more. She asked if Aneesh did anything untoward. I nodded. By the time we came downstairs, Aneesh had fled the scene."

The survivor concluded the post by saying that she decided to open up as she was yet to recover from the trauma even after several years. Also, she accused her parents for not being supportive and understanding during the time of the incident. The girl ends the post by saying that there might be more girls who could have been abused by the actor."I sincerely hope that if I speak up, more of them would find the courage to speak out," she concluded.