Malayalam actor Alencier Ley Lopez, who was once accused of sexually harassing a colleague and had later apologised for it in public, has now stirred controversy with problematic comments about rape and the Me Too case involving a bishop in Kerala. In an interview he gave the news and entertainment platform Editoreal, Alencier asked if the survivor nun who filed the case of rape against the bishop “did not know it was rape the first time it happened” and should she be calling it out only after the 13th time.
The case he refers to came up in 2018, when the survivor nun lodged a complaint about the alleged sexual assault she went through between the years of 2014 and 2016. The crime had made huge waves in Kerala, with the Bishop of Jalandhar diocese Franco Mulakkal getting a lot of support from the Church while the survivor nun and the five other nuns who stood with her were ostracised. Last year, a court in Kottayam of Kerala acquitted the Bishop in the case, after which the survivor nun filed an appeal against it at the High Court.
Alencier, who is asked about the complaints of sexual harassment in Malayalam cinema, at first resorts to the standard reply, that this is not something that happens only in cinema. He then suddenly refers to the Bishop’s case and says, “Whether you are a nun or a film actor, you need intelligence and common sense. How can someone be raped 12 times? Don’t you know it is rape after the first time? Where was your intelligence and common sense the first 12 times you were raped? That is fake,” he says.
The actor who was earlier known for his public stands and unique protests for social and political issues was called out by actor Divya Gopinath in a video for his alleged acts of sexual harassment in the sets of a film. She had wanted him to apologise in public, and he did so while giving an interview to the Times of India. Scriptwriter Syam Pushkaran, who had worked with Alencier in several films before that, said during a public event in 2019 that he would stand with the survivor, and that humanity came before friendship.