Vinta Nanda: Onus on me to undergo medical test and prove my story

Vinta Nanda

Writer-director Vinta Nanda, who has accused actor Alok Nath of rape, on Sunday said the onus is back on her as she now has to undergo medical tests to help investigate the alleged incident that happened nearly two decades ago. Nanda had filed a complaint on October 19 with the police that Nath allegedly sexually assaulted her 19 years ago during the shooting of her TV show Tara.

A first information report (FIR) was registered at the Oshiwara police station in suburban Andheri on Tuesday. Nath has been booked under Indian Penal Code's Section 376 (rape). "I had filed a police complaint. It took three weeks for them to call me back and say yes we will now file an FIR, which happened last week. Along with the filing of the FIR, which normally should've led to him being arrested or at least being investigated, now the onus is back on me.

"I have to go for a physical medical test now, twenty years later. I read in the paper today where they've said I have to undergo a medical check and only then they will be able to proceed with the case," Nanda said. The writer was in conversation with journalist Barkha Dutt at a panel discussion on 'After the #MeToo revolution, what next?' at We The Women event. The writer said she took on Nath in the capacity she could, but lacked courage to approach the police back then.

"I did take him on in that sense. We went to his house and spoke to his wife back then but she said she can't do anything about it. She was probably as helpless. Going to the police wasn't an option for me. I just didn't have the courage. I was so terrified," she said. Nanda said the silence within her had manifested in several different ways, all of which came out after she went public with her story.

"Silence manifests in different ways. If you're not the kind of person to be silent, if you are the person who confronts things and deals with them in an empowered way, you are worse off dealing with silence within you because you've internalised something which isn't natural to you at all. "I attribute my attitude of mistrust and negativity with which I've lived it to silence, which got released when I posted that on Facebook. A lot of my friends ask me today what has happened to you, we are having cinema conversations with you now," she added. Also present at the panel discussion were filmmaker Paromita Vohra, Sister Jesme and Mahima Kukreja.

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