(Image source from: MissMalini)
The Ministry of Women and Child Development (WCD) on Friday proclaimed that a committee including four retired judges will be formed to investigate the grievances of sexual harassment and sexual assault against numerous prominent citizens of India.
"I am proposing to set up a committee with senior judicial and legal persons as members to look into all issues emanating from the #MeToo campaign," said Maneka Gandhi, Minister of Women and Child Development, in an interview to PTI.
The minister added that the committee will look into the legal and institutional framework that is in place for handling complaints of sexual harassment and advise the ministry on how to strengthen these.
Maneka Gandhi went on to state that she believes in all the survivors who have come out with their accounts and have made complaints of sexual harassment.
"I believe in the pain and trauma behind every single complaint. The cases of sexual harassment at work must be dealt with a policy of zero tolerance," Maneka Gandhi told ANI.
#WATCH: Minister for Women & Child Development Maneka Gandhi explains about the committee which will be set up to examine all issues emanating from the #MeTooIndia movement. pic.twitter.com/Uo9qEl1wIb
— ANI (@ANI) October 12, 2018
"We have set up a group of judges who will examine some of the cases in an independent and a free-style manner, and advise us and them on where we should go from here," she added.
Former journalist and present minister of state in the Ministry of External Affairs MJ Akbar, journalist KR Sreenivas, producer-filmmaker Vikas Bahl, lyricist Vairamuthu, directors Sajid Khan and Subhash, actors Alok Nath and Nana Patekar, are some of the prominent names against whom claims of sexual harassment and/or sexual assault have been made. Quite a few women have taken to Twitter to share their distressing and gut-wrenching accounts of in what way they were harassed.
The #MeToo upsurge in India, which was begun earlier this year by student Raya Sarkar, who released a List of Sexual Harassers in Academia (LoSHA), initiated a new push after actor Tanushree Dutta accused Indian actor Nana Patekar of sexual harassment.
-Sowmya Sangam
