The press club in Ernakulam on Saturday was witness to many emotions when the members of the Women in Cinema Collective (WCC) addressed the media, voicing their disappointment over the manner in which the Association of Malayalam Movie Artistes (AMMA) handled the Dileep issue.
Apart from points raised by the WCC members, another issue that made news was the conduct of some of the mediapersons during the press meet, which has been termed as aggressive and disrespectful by many journalists who were present at the venue as well as by those who watched the press meet on television.
Following this incident, the Kerala chapter of the Network of Women In Media, India (NWMI) put out a statement on Sunday, apologising to WCC for the “aggressive” behaviour of a few mediapersons.
“NWMI understands that it was a deliberate attempt by a few journalists to insult the members of WCC who came to discuss the issues faced by the women at their workplace and issues based on the actor abduction and assault case. We condemn against this untoward incident that happened at the press meet. We also apologise for the difficulties faced by the WCC members on this,” the statement read.
WCC members Parvathy, Revathy, Padmapriya, Anjali Menon, Beena Paul, Rima Kallingal, Remya Nambeesan and Sajitha Madathil were present at the press meet. Most of them were dressed in black as a sign of protest.
The press meet was called after AMMA failed to keep its promise of standing by the survivor and did not concrete action towards improving the safety of women in its fold. Most importantly, the WCC alleged that AMMA was being evasive about its decision to reinstate Dileep, who stands accused of being the mastermind behind the plot to abduct and assault a female Malayalam actor in February last year.
The WCC said that they had lost their faith in the AMMA executive council. The statement comes after the WCC members met with AMMA on August 7, in what was considered to be a "productive" meeting. However, the WCC charged that AMMA had let them down by its inaction since then.