Siddique's anticipatory bail plea: A case study in victim-blaming
Men accused of sexual assault or harassment shaming the complainant by attempting character assassination is not new. Yet, in Malayalam actor Siddique's anticipatory bail plea for a rape case, this tactic took centre stage, with the survivor subjected to cruel slut-shaming. Even the Kerala High Court couldn't overlook this, prompting the court to describe it as "unwarranted and uncharitable". The court then refused to grant him anticipatory bail.
Senior criminal lawyer Raman Pillai represented Siddique, and his main contention for seeking bail was built entirely on discrediting the survivor by pulling up posts from her Facebook account and citing the delay in filing a complaint. Raman Pillai submitted a total of 17 annexures, of which 12 were Facebook posts of the survivor. TNM went through all these posts and found that many of them were unrelated to the issue. In the story, we explain how these posts were either her social commentary on various issues or were instances of her venting out her frustration. However, Siddique claimed that these posts showed she was not a “vulnerable woman” and instead showed how she could openly engage in “vitriol and profanity”.
Siddique is not a small name in Malayalam cinema. The actor who started his career in 1985, has over the years, become a powerful presence in the industry as an actor and producer. He was the general secretary of the Association of Malayalam Movie Artistes (A.M.M.A.), the largest actors’ welfare organisation in Malayalam cinema, formerly headed by superstar Mohanlal.
In the present case, in which Siddique approached the Kerala HC for anticipatory bail, the survivor mentioned in her complaint that the actor befriended her through Facebook in 2014. She stated that he frequently interacted with her and her mother over the phone and via Skype, encouraging her to work in films, and assuring mentorship from his side.
In 2016, he allegedly invited her for the preview of a film in Thiruvananthapuram’s Nila theatre, when she first met him in person. She said in her complaint that he later invited her to his room in Hotel Mascot to discuss casting her in an upcoming film, in which his son was to play the lead. It was during this meeting that he allegedly raped her.
The construct of an ideal survivor
In his bail petition, Siddique attacked the survivor's character by focusing on her social media activity and portraying her as not fitting the typical image of an "ideal survivor." He claimed that, in her complaint, she portrayed herself as “a vulnerable, middle-class, single daughter who lacked the courage to report the incident earlier, and who continues to suffer from intense trauma and fear for her life”. He then cited the survivor’s Facebook activities in an attempt to establish the opposite.
Siddique’s counsel presented as many as 12 Facebook posts of the survivor as annexures, including a post from as early as 2019.
There were two main arguments put forth by Siddique with the help of these posts. First, he claimed she gained public attention not for her acting talent but for naming and shaming people in the film industry on social media.
Then, he described her as having a “carefully constructed facade of an ordinary woman”. He said that her online activity contradicted her claims of fear and trauma, showcasing a different reality. The bail petition argued that her public rhetoric demonstrates her ability to engage in “vitriolic speech”, undermining her claims of fear and trauma.
The first annexure Siddique submitted was a Facebook post from October 2018 in which the survivor spoke about a movie director who allegedly misbehaved with her.
The next is a Facebook post from May 21, 2019 in which she first disclosed about Siddique. She clearly says that she got triggered after she watched a press conference of the actor from 2018. In the press meet, Siddique and late actor KPAC Lalitha had come to the defence of actor Dileep.
The next post is from September 18, 2020 in which the survivor has described the assault in more detail. This post was her reaction to news articles at the time which said that Siddique, Bhama, Bindu Panicker and several others had turned hostile in the 2017 actor assault case and had refused to indict Dileep.
In her post, she wrote, “‘Even if you didn’t agree to insert [my penis], it’s not a problem. Can I still do the rest?’ This is what actor Siddique asked me while behaving badly, and his sudden change of attitude is not surprising. I don’t know if Bhama and Bindu Panicker have thought of this as a one-person struggle until now. This struggle is also a fight for justice for all women, including you and me.”
The survivor then gave a detailed interview to the Times of India. The news and her post sharing the article has been added as the next two annexures by Siddique.
The next annexure Siddique submitted is a post from November 22, 2020 in which the survivor has reacted to A.M.M.A. not taking action against Bineesh Kodiyeri, a film actor and son of CPI(M) leader Kodiyeri Balakrishnan, caught in a narcotics-related money laundering case.
The next three annexures are what Siddique’s lawyer highlighted the most saying that the survivor suddenly “expanded the list of her alleged abusers by adding 12 new names and published a fresh list of 14 names” on Facebook “to humiliate them”.
On June 15, 2021, the survivor wrote on Facebook that several men have “sexually, mentally, verbally, and emotionally” abused her. She then went on to give a list of 14 men, mentioning their respective work profiles.
The next day, she posted their pictures and also did a Facebook live for 1 hour and 17 minutes. Citing this Facebook video, Siddique argued that she was someone capable of ‘openly engaging in vitriolic and profane rhetoric’. In the video, she however does not use any profanity. She explains the abuse she faced from multiple people and attempts to question their defences.
There is one more Facebook post on Siddique dated January 6, 2022. This was the survivor reacting to a news that Siddique was reportedly present when Dileep hatched the conspiracy to attack the actor. She wrote, “The fact that many like Siddique are still active in that space shows just how abusive that space truly is.”
The final three annexures are her Facebook posts on unrelated issues. In a post on January 30, 2023, she wrote about how a school principal questioned her clothes during an event.
On October 18, 2022, she reacted to an alleged cyber harasser, who was at the time accused of harassment by women on social media.
And in the final one, on October 21, 2022, she explained how she faced moral policing while she was pursuing post graduation and police officials did not help her.
The survivor’s counsel had told the court that fear had stopped her from coming out sooner against Siddique. But Siddique’s petition called her “an outspoken lady who does not hesitate to falsely indict anyone”, just because she was active on social media. But as illustrated above, many of these posts were unrelated to Siddique and were dragged to the courtroom, seemingly to further tax the survivor by victim shaming her – a tactic several lawyers also resort to in such cases to discredit survivors.
Survivor changed account
To further turn things on the survivor, Siddique’s bail petition made several claims about her credibility based on her earlier testimonies of the incident.
Siddique’s counsel argued that “it is hard to believe that after the sexual harassment allegedly committed by the petitioner against the survivor at ‘Nila Theatre’, the survivor would dare to go to the hotel room of the accused.”
He then went on to make the malicious claim that since a theatre where a movie preview was “inherently unsuitable for non-verbal sexual acts”, the survivor “conducted research to identify a more conducive setting” and then alleged that he raped her in a hotel room.
The actor’s petition claimed that while the survivor had earlier said that he “tried to sexually misbehave” with her and mentioned “verbal sexual offerings” at a movie theatre in 2016, she now “has come up with an allegation of rape” after she was “made aware that a simple allegation of attempted sexual assault is a bailable offence, and therefore, the petitioner could not be taken into custody”.
It must be noted that neither in her statements nor in her complaint does she claim that she was harassed at the theatre where she attended the film screening with her parents. It was after the screening, she said, that Siddique invited her to his hotel room to discuss her possibilities as an actor.
Regardless of where the harassment took place, however, the petition appears eager to cast aspersions on the survivor’s character, trying to shift the blame on her for “daring to go to the hotel room.”
Rejecting the bail petition, Justice CS Dias came down heavily against Siddique’s attack on the survivor's character. “A woman’s experiences of sexual assault are not a reflection of her character but rather, an indication of her suffering. The attempt to blame a woman for speaking out may be a strategy to silence her, which is hostile to the supremacy of the law,” the judge noted.
Siddique’s petition also brought up the survivor’s expulsion from a college in China due to “questionable character”. However, the court refused to entertain these contentions and ordered them to stick to the current case.
Siddique also contended that the survivor’s allegations were “notably vague” and “did not provide even the most basic detail regarding the date of the alleged incident”. “This glaring omission suggests that the complainant and her collaborators have yet to fabricate a specific date, further underscoring the falsity of the claims,” his petition read.
‘Delay does not invalidate the complaint’
Siddique also tried to establish that the woman’s delay in filing a complaint was an indicator of the allegation not being genuine. He argued that she registered a complaint only in 2024, eight years after the alleged incident in 2016, and “gave no plausible explanation for the inordinate delay”.
Siddique’s counsel further disregarded the survivor’s statement that fear of the senior actor’s clout and what he could do had prevented her from making a complaint sooner. “It is improbable that the survivor is scared to complain, that too against a person who has misbehaved with her,” added the petition, making another sweeping statement about the survivor’s character.
The High Court dismissed these arguments, heavily criticisng their inappropriateness in a case of sexual assault. Reinforcing the settled legal position that delay does not vitiate the prosecution’s case, the court said that any delay in filing a complaint is not a ground for scraping it, particularly while considering a bail application.
“Victims of sexual abuse and assault may experience psychological, emotional and social barriers that feed the delay in reporting the matter, which necessarily has to be understood in the context of the trauma…. The survivor must also have gone through great turmoil, and only after serious thought would she decide to lodge the FIR,” the High Court said and cited several Supreme Court orders as legal precedents to this.
The court also mentioned the Hema Committee report, citing that it has presumably emboldened many victims of sexual assault like the survivor in Siddique’s case herself. The court concluded by reminiscing about the observations of the Supreme Court in the recent Bilkis Yakub Rasool v. Union of India, 2024:
“...that a woman deserves respect howsoever high or low she may be otherwise considered in society or to whatever faith she may follow or any creed she may belong to…”
With inputs from Cris.