The Maharashtra State Women Commission (MSWC) has finally woken up. The panel has approached the Mumbai police commissioner to take action against controversial film actor Kamaal R Khan for allegedly abusing female actors online.
In a letter written to top cop Dattatray Padsalgikar on July 18, the MSWC has sought a probe against Khan and has also suggested action on him, on the basis of the probe findings. The MSWC action has come after the National Commission of Women's (NCW) directive last week.
Mumbai-based lawyer Rizwan Siddiquee had lodged a complaint with the state commission on June 28 against controversial small-time film producer Kamaal Khan. He even submitted some "proofs". He then approached the NCW on July 4, complaining that the state panel chief Vijaya Rahatkar was "chasing" actor Salman Khan in a frivolous case while doing nothing in genuine cases. ?
In the complaint, Siddiquee has alleged that Kamaal Khan sexually harassed as many as 18 film actors on social media platforms. Reportedly, the commission did not take cognizance of the petition for a week. Then Siddiquee invoked IPC section 166 (A) to serve the notice to Rahatkar and threatened to take her to the court for "willfully failing to perform her duty". With no response of his complaint and legal notice, he then approached the NCW.
Though he has welcomed NCW's prompt response, Siddiquee has now alleged that the state panel didn't conduct any hearing and simply transferred the case to the police, which was unusual.
Meanwhile, Rahatkar denied that the state panel took action after the NCW order. She said, "We took time to understand the case as it was very messy. The Twitter proofs given to us showed that Kamaal Khan had been badly abusing film actors continuously. Since the police have the expertise to deal with such cyber crimes, we asked the commissioner to investigate and take action."
She added that she would deal with Siddique's legal notice separately. Meanwhile, when inquired about the status of the case, Mumbai police PRO Ashok Dudhe said, "I'm not aware of the case."
