A Delhi based Malayali woman professional has lodged a police case of sexual assault against Rubin D'Cruz, editor of the Malayalam department of the National Book Trust (NBT), India, who was earlier director of the Kerala State Institute of Children’s Literature. Based on her complaint, a First Information Report (FIR) has been registered against Rubin at the Vasant Kunj North police station and he has been booked under Section 354 (assualt on a woman) of the Indian Penal Code.
The woman has also written about her experience on her Facebook page. "I have been going through some disturbing times recently. The self confidence and the trust in people that I had built through the last 25 years or so have been broken from its roots. I saw the real faces of certain people who do ‘Facebook revolutions’ on human rights and equal justice and wear a mask of left-progressive ideas," she writes.
After some friendly talk, Rubin, who invited her home to have food, ‘showed his true colours’, the woman says, and adds, "I realised how even people who are generally strong can be weakened when they are physically violated."
She had the support of friends and family and she also had to get counselling. Once she felt better, she decided to lodge a complaint against Rubin, or it would be a wrong she does to her fellow beings, the woman writes. She speculates on how traumatic it would have been for someone else in her place if they didn’t have the kind of support she had.
Once she filed the case, she was surprised by people she had considered friends speaking for Rubin. Her decision (to file a case) is also a reaction against those who justify such predatory behaviour of men, and tell women who have been through physical and mental pain to show mercy and humanity. It is a reply to the friends of "progressive" men who are sexual predators, she writes.
She also talks about other women who told her about similar experiences they faced from Rubin but who could not open up due to several reasons. After the woman put up the post, another woman from Kerala too has shared a similar experience.