In a huge development, the Mumbai Police on Wednesday filed an FIR in rape against actor Alok Nath. Mumbai Police Additional CP Manoj Sharma was quoted by news agency ANI that Oshiwara Police had registered an FIR against Alok Nath under section 376 of IPC (rape) on the complaint filed by Writer Vinta Nanda.
Weeks after facing rape charges and allegations of serious sexual misconduct, Nath was expelled from Cine & TV Artistes’ Association or CINTAA. The artists’ body took to Twitter to make the announcement on 13 November.
In October, producer Vinta Nanda had written a chilling account of an episode when she was sexually violated by Alok Nath after she had produced the popular TV show Tara in the 90s.
Nanda had written, “I was invited to a party to this mans house, his wife, my best friend was out of town. It was usual for our group of friends from theatre to meet regularly so there was nothing unusual about my going to the party. As the evening flowed, my drinks were mixed and I began to feel strange. Then at around 2am I left his house. Nobody followed me or offered to drop me home, which was what was rather unusual.
“All I knew at the time was that I had to get home. I could sense it wouldn’t be right for me to stay there any longer. I started to walk home on the empty streets although the distance to my own house was long. Midway I was accosted by this man who was driving his own car and he asked me to sit in it and said he would drop me home. I trusted him and sat in his car. I have faint memory after that. I can remember more liquor being poured into my mouth and I remember being violated endlessly,” she had added.
Nanda then wrote the most horrific details of her experience. She wrote, “When I woke up the next afternoon, I was in pain. I hadn’t just been raped, I was taken to my own house and had been brutalised.. When I woke up the next afternoon, I was in pain. I hadn’t just been raped, I was taken to my own house and had been brutalised.”
Although Nanda had not named Alok Nath in her long Facebook post, her reference to her attacker as the lead actor of Tara gave it all.
Nath had made light of Nanda’s incredibly serious allegations. Later, another former co-star of Nath, Sandhya Mridul, had accused him of sexual misconduct while shooting a TV serial.