Drishyam Actor Aneesh Menon Faces #MeToo Heat, His Student Makes Shocking Allegations

Aneesh Menon, the actor best known for his roles in Drishyam, Odiyan, Lucifer, Driving Licence and many other Mollywood films, has become the latest one to be embroiled in the #MeToo movement, a social campaign against sexual abuse and harassment where survivors publicize allegations. The actor was reportedly called out by one of his former mono-act students who accused him of inappropriate behaviour. In a note shared on Reddit, the student revealed her fondness for mono-act and elocution, and how she ended up at an institution where Aneesh was a teacher, so as to polish her skills for a school event.

Her note read, "From then on, I started training under him daily. He was liked by everybody in general. He used to express affection by pulling my cheeks. Soon, I started feeling uneasy about his behavior. But he began to take more freedom with me, touched and grabbed my body parts saying that it was to correct my positions and to make the postures more beautiful. "To correct my chest position", once he reached down under my top and pressed my br***t. It really hurt. This happened several times since then. Once during a training session, I said some excuse to him, went to mom and asked her to sit with me during the training. But she dismissed me by saying that Aneesh would need his space to teach. He could convince my parents that it was all part of the training."

The survivor further explained how she was afraid to narrate the ordeal to her parents as she was victim-shamed in the past. She even had qualms, however, things went south after Aneesh allegedly crossed all limits. "What if this was the way to teach mono-act? I even doubted myself that maybe I was imagining all this. Later, whenever he called my home, he used to talk to me too. His conversations were filled with passive references to s**. This made me feel very uncomfortable. I was terribly afraid and in shock."

The unnamed person also recounted a shocking incident when she had to practice a sequence with the actor and the latter allegedly misbehaved.

Sharing that she opened up about the incident now as she was yet to recover from the trauma of the events that unfolded. The former student asserted that she really hoped more people would find the courage to speak out about the ill-treatments of the star.

For women in distress help available at, Central Social Welfare Board -Police Helpline: 1091/ 1291, (011) 23317004; Shakti Shalini- women's shelter: (011) 24373736/ 24373737; All India Women's Conference: 10921/ (011) 23389680; Joint Women's Programme: (011) 24619821; Sakshi- violence intervention center: (0124) 2562336/ 5018873; Nirmal Niketan (011) 27859158; JAGORI (011) 26692700; Nari Raksha Samiti: (011) 23973949; RAHI Recovering and Healing from Incest. A support centre for women survivors of child sexual abuse: (011) 26238466/ 26224042, 26227647.