A star of Indian cinema accused of involvement in the kidnapping and sexual assault of another actor has been readmitted to an industry association, triggering a wave of resignations from the group, including by his alleged victim.



Gopalakrishnan Padmanabhan Pillai, better known by his stage name Dileep, is awaiting trial over an incident in February 2017 in which a group of men allegedly forced their way into the woman’s car and sexually assaulted her as they drove around Kochi city, in Kerala state, for several hours.

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Dileep, one of the most popular actors in Mollywood – as the industry in Kerala is known – is accused of masterminding the kidnapping as revenge for the woman telling his now ex-partner about his alleged affairs, according to the police charge sheet. He denies any involvement and is out on bail.

Following the allegations, Dileep was expelled from the Association of Malayalam Movie Actors (Amma). But at its annual general meeting on Sunday – which the media were barred from attending – a majority of board members voted to reinstate his membership.

Amma’s general secretary, Edavela Babu, told the Hindu newspaper that Dileep’s expulsion had not been decided in accordance with the organisation’s rules. “No one can be ousted like that without following due process,” he said.

Absent from the meeting were members of the Women’s Cinema Collective (WCC), a group established after the incident to advocate for safer working conditions for women in the industry. Four members of the collective, including the survivor of the alleged assault, resigned from Amma the following day.

“You are taking back a person who is accused of heinous crimes like rape and whose trial has not even been completed,” WCC members said in a statement posted on Facebook. “Isn’t the victim who was subject to the harassment also a member of the organisation? By taking this decision, aren’t you insulting that person?”

The alleged victim said in a separate statement that Amma had failed to step in as Dileep had “scuttled many of my acting opportunities” in the years before the assault.

“Now, when such an unfortunate incident happened in my life, the organisation again tried to protect the accused,” she said.

The WCC, the first women’s group of its kind in the Indian cinema industry, was set up after male industry figures rallied around Dileep in the aftermath of the accusations. Some criticised the complainant, suggesting she had staged the alleged attack for publicity.

Padmapriya, an actor and founding member of the WCC, told the Guardian the decision to reinstate Dileep had come as a shock. She said Amma did many good things for the industry but “needs to evolve”.

Growing numbers of Indian film workers have spoken out in recent years about a culture of sexual exploitation, and particularly actors being pressured to exchange sex for roles.

But the industry is yet to undergo a reckoning of the kind that has gripped Hollywood since the producer Harvey Weinstein was accused of sexual assault last October.