Actor Prithviraj Sukumaran addressed the sexual assault case involving assistant director Mansoor Rasheed, who was accused of raping and blackmailing a junior artiste. Prithviraj said the team immediately fired Rasheed when they found out. Rasheed had been working on Prithviraj’s film Empuraan and had also worked on Bro Daddy. According to Manorama Online, Prithviraj was informed about the incident by his chief associate director, and the team took swift action during the first schedule of the action thriller in 2023.
Prithviraj said the assistant was promptly fired. He added, “I was made aware of the issue when my chief associate director told me that such a complaint has been registered with the police against the said assistant director. This happened in October 2023 at the very beginning of Empuraan filming, a few days into the first schedule. I wasn’t aware of this incident or the issues leading up to the complaint till then. The assistant director was instructed to leave the set the very same day, present himself before the police and face the due course of law.”
As per reports, that the alleged incident occurred on August 8, 2021, in Hyderabad, where the junior artist was on set to film a wedding scene. It suggests that Mansoor spiked her drink and then raped her in a hotel room where she was staying with the film crew. The assistant director is also accused of taking nude photos of her and using them to blackmail her.
Not long back, Prithviraj Sukumaran, who was last seen in The Goat Life, has reacted to the Hema Committee report, in a press interacttion. When asked about the impact on the film industry, Prithviraj said there should be a strong response. “Just because I haven’t faced any issues from a so-called influential group doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. I haven’t experienced it, but if anyone in Malayalam cinema has been affected by such a group, their grievances must be heard. If such a body exists, it should be dismantled,” he added.
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