Actor Parvathy from the Malayalam industry has filed a police complaint of stalking against a man who claims to be a lawyer.
Based on her complaint, an FIR was filed under section 354D (stalking) of Indian Penal Code and 120O (penalty for causing nuisance and violation of public order -- causing, through any means of communication, a nuisance of himself to any person by repeated or undesirable or anonymous call, letter, writing, message, e-mail or through a messenger) of the Kerala Police Act.
The man, who calls himself Kishore in his communications, contacted Parvathy's brother through Facebook messenger, claiming that it was an "urgent matter" that he wished to discuss regarding Parvathy. The actor says that she was informed about this exchange on October 7 this year by her brother.
In the screenshots of the conversation that Parvathy has submitted to the police, Kishore has enquired about Parvathy's whereabouts to her brother. Though Parvathy was in US at the time, the man claimed that she was actually in Kochi and further claimed that she was in trouble with some kind of mafia and that he wished to save her from the same.
“Please somehow just rescue that girl from Kochi. Here many people are talking about her. Many of my friends are the ones in touch with her,” the man claimed in his voice note.
When her brother dismissed the man's claims, he bombarded him with several messages on WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, even claiming that he was romantically involved with Parvathy.
“Whatever she is saying to you - that she is traveling to Bombay and then going to the USA - all of these are lies. She is very much in Kochi and has been here for a long time. If you can intervene now please do,” the defamatory voice note further claimed.
The harassment did not stop when Parvathy's brother stopped responding, and Kishore next shifted his attention to Parvathy's father. However, when her father also stopped responding, the man showed up at their residence on October 14. The actor says in the complaint that Kishore claimed she had a "secret social media account" through which she chatted with several men, one of whom was his closest friend.
Parvathy's parents asked the man to leave but he persisted with phone calls and voice notes.
In the voice notes, the man goes on a rant accusing the actor’s father of being a ‘failure’ for refusing to ‘save’ his daughter.
“I don’t have any reason to come to your house and tell you this. I am doing this because I feel bad that this is happening to such a good artist,” he says in his abusive messages to the actor’s father.
Parvathy says in the complaint that the continued harassment has taken a toll on her. “Stalking as a crime has not been taken seriously and this has resulted in so many women being harmed. Some even fatally. It’s a very harrowing experience,” she says. Though Kishore claims to be a lawyer and director, he has not been associated with any movie. After Parvathy filed a police complaint, he has further harassed her by calling others from the industry with his conspiracy theories.
Parvathy is one of the industry's most outspoken female actors and has faced several instances of abuse and harassment as a result. She's a member of the Women in Cinema Collective (WCC) that was formed in solidarity with a prominent woman actor from the Malayalam industry who was abducted and sexually assaulted in February 2017. Later that year, Parvathy was subjected to an ugly, vicious attack on social media and from industry insiders for expressing her views about the misogyny in the Mammootty film, Kasaba. At the time, she had filed a police complaint against a man named Rojan for issuing rape threats. Rojan was later arrested by the Kerala police for the abuse.