New Delhi — Police in India’s southern state of Kerala have opened investigations into allegations of rape against several popular movie stars from the region’s Malayalam language film industry. Cases have been registered against some of the industry’s biggest names after female actors started speaking out in a new manifestation of the MeToo movement triggered by a damning government report that revealed a culture of sexual exploitation in Kerala’s entertainment industry.

The sexual assault allegations have rocked the south Indian film business — which is separate from the Mumbai-based, Hindi-language film industry known as Bollywood — amid a wave of national outrage over the brutal rape and murder of a female doctor in the eastern city of Kolkata.

Kerala police have opened at least 10 formal investigations into alleged sexual misconduct, ranging from reports of rape to harrassment, against members of Kerala’s film industry, including directors Vineeth (who uses only one name), Ranjith Balakrishnan and VK Prakash, and popular actors Siddique and Jayasurya (who also use only one name), Edavela Babu, Maniyanpillai Raju and actor-politician M Mukesh.

Producer Noble Jacob and online movie reviewers Alain Jose and Santhosh Varkey have also been named among those under investigation over the accusations received by the Kerala police. 

The cases were filed on the basis of 16 complaints received by the police so far, the force said Thursday. Kerala Police Inspector General G Sparjan Kumar, who heads the Special Investigation Team formed to probe the allegations, said a separate team would investigate each complaint.

According to the case registered against director Vineeth, he stands accused of raping an actor whom he’d promised a role in a movie. The alleged rape is said to have taken place in April at the female actor’s house. 

Actor Jayasurya has been accused of groping a coworker on the set of a movie in 2008. 

Neither Vineeth nor Jayasurya have spoken publicly about the allegations. 

Siddique, who has been accused of raping an actress at a hotel in 2016, stepped down Sunday from his role as the General Secretary of the Association of Malayalam Movie Artists. 

Director Ranjith has been accused by a female actor of sexual misconduct. He stepped down on Sunday from his role as the chairman of the Malayalam industry’s Kerala State Chalachitra Academy. 

Both Siddique and Ranjith have denied the allegations against them.

A female actor accused actor-politician M Mukesh of forcibly entering her hotel room and raping her in 2013. The woman has filed sexual abuse complaints against Jayasurya, Maniyanpilla Raju and Edavela Babu, as well. Mukesh has called the case a bid to blackmail him and said he will take legal action against the accuser.

The allegations of rape and sexual exploitation in Kerala’s movie industry started surfacing after the state’s High Court ordered the release of a formal report carried out on behalf of state authorities. 

The Justice Hema Committee Report was authored five years ago by a panel formed to examine women’s safety issues in the film industry, following the abduction and sexual assault of a leading female actor in February 2017. It was only released weeks ago upon the court’s order.

The 290-page report, parts of which were redacted to conceal the identities of survivors and those accused of crimes, called the Malyalam-language film industry “a mafia of powerful men” where sexual harassment of female artists was “rampant… unchecked and uncontrolled”.

“Many in the industry are made to believe that all women in the industry get into the industry or are retained only because they have sex with men in the industry,” the report says. “Men in the industry make open demands for sex without any qualms as if it’s their birthright. Women are left with very little options but to oblige — or reject at the cost of their long-awaited dream of pursuing cinema as their profession.”

“The experiences of many women are really shocking and of such gravity that they have not disclosed the details even to their close family members,” the report said.