April 21, 2018
Amid the raging row over casting couch in Telugu film
industry, the Telangana government on Saturday decided to form a special cell to
look into complaints of sexual exploitation.
After a meeting with
representatives of Tollywood, Minister for Cinematography T. Srinivas Yadav
announced that the special cell will be created in the Film Development
Corporation.
The decision came amid a huge row over complaints of sexual
exploitation made by actress Sri Reddy, who hit headlines with strip protest and
received support from women's organisations.
The meeting convened by the
minister with members of Movie Artists' Association (MAA) and leading
personalities of the Tollywood discussed the recent developments in Tollywood.
Yadav advised all to put an end to the controversy. He urged the industry
representatives to ensure that such incidents do not recur.
On the row
over MAA membership, he said from now onwards the Film Development Corporation
will issue the membership cards.
The minister said if women artists face
any problems, they could bring it to the notice of the police or 'She' teams of
the police force, especially constituted to deal with sexual harassment.
He directed the authorities to provide proper facilities to women at the places
of film shooting. The minister said the government would deal firmly with any
complaints of harassment of women.
MAA president Shivaji Raja, actress
Jevitha Rajasekhar, Tammareddy Bharadwaj, C. Kalyan, Parachuri Venkateshwar Rao,
Naresh and officials of Cinematography, Labour and Police departments attended
the meeting.
The meeting was called a day after popular actor and Jana
Sena chief Pawan Kalyan asked MAA and Telugu Film Chamber to immediately take
steps to end the controversy.
Pawan had targeted some Telugu television
channels for their coverage of Sri Reddy, who had abused his mother. He had
called upon people to boycott three channels for what he calls making business
out of nudity and profanity.
Sri Reddy, a television
anchor-turned-actress, had created a sensation by resorting to strip protest
against casting couch in Tollywood in front of the office of Telugu Film Chamber
of Commerce here on April 7.
The actress, who started her career as a
news reader on a Telugu channel and also did small roles in a couple of films,
named a few prominent personalities of the industry. She had also targeted MAA
for denying her membership.
MAA responded with a ban on the actress but
later withdrew it after the National Human Rights Commission sent notices to the
Telangana government and the Union Information and Broadcasting Ministry over
her allegations of sexual exploitation.
The commission took suo moto
cognizance of media reports about the allegations raised by Sri Reddy and a lack
of grievance redressal mechanism for women in the film industry.