Malayalam Film Industry is facing a troubling time, as multiple male actors are facing renewed or new allegations of sexual harassment from actresses post the disclosure of Hema Committee report. Directors like Ranjith, Liju Krishna, Omar Lulu, VK Prakash and Kamal are facing these accusations. And now Thulasidas, a popular director from '90s and 2000s is facing allegations of sexual harassment from two actresses - Geetha Vijayan and Sridevika - who had worked with the filmmaker in the past.
. Sridevika, who had worked with the director in the 2007 film , had claimed Thulasidas has harassed her during the shoot in a recent interview, according to . In fact she had previously made this accusation against the director in 2018 in a Facebook post, though she didn't name him there.
She had written, "Someone was constantly knocking my hotel room door in the middle of the night and this happened for 3-4 nights continuously. I had called up the reception to look into who it was, and later they confirmed it’s the Director. My mother then addressed this issue with my co-actor and he helped me shift to a room on the floor where he was also staying.
" She had then accused AMMA (Association of Malayalam Movie Artistes) of not taking any action against the director. In response to Sridevika's accusations, actress Geetha Vijayan came out in support of the actress and made a similar allegation against Thulasidas while speaking to a news channel. In an interview to , Geetha Vijayan said that she wrote to an email to Sridevika when the latter made the accusations against the director.
While confirming to the channel that the perpetrator was indeed Thulasidas, the actress claims that she had a similar experience with the filmmaker during the shoot of the 1991 film . She alleged that the director used to knock at her hotel in the night several times. During the shoot in Kochi, she claimed that Thulasidas cold-shouldered her and it was the assistants who gave her lines and cues for shoot.
She also added he wasted her dates and even cut her scenes. Geetha Vijayan also added that she opened the door and hit Thulasidas hard when he bothered her on the third night. Calling him a demon, the actress says the director has not changed at all since he has meted out a similar treatment to Sridevika in 2006.
She also accused producer Aroma Mohan, former production controller, of harassing her on phone. Geetha Vijayan added that Idavela Babu (himself accused in #MeToo movement), a promiment member in AMMA, is aware of the incident but did little to tackle the situation. .
In response to these allegations, Thulasidas denied the accusations to a regional publication, saying "We were all happy during the filming of the movie. Nothing that relates to a bad experience happened on the film set. I don't know why she made such an allegation against me.
" Interestingly, also starred Siddique and late Mamukkoya who are also facing sexual harassment accusations from junior artists who have come out in open post the Hema Committee report disclosure. The movie had Jayaram and Urvashi in the lead, and is a remake of the 1981 Tamil film, (starring Bhagyaraj and Saritha). Thulasidas has been a popular commercial filmmaker who made his debut as a filmmaker in the 1988 film .
He achieved box office success with the 1989 soft-porn film , that starred late Silk Smitha. Post that, Thulasidas made more family-friendly fare like among others. However, the director has not been active in cinema after the failure of his last few films.
His last movie came out in 2016 called ..
