Veteran filmmaker and former MLA PT Kunju Muhammad was arrested by the Cantonment police on Tuesday in connection with a sexual harassment case filed by a woman filmmaker. While the arrest was formally recorded and he was produced before the court, the veteran director was allowed to leave shortly after as he had already secured anticipatory bail.
The arrest proceedings were handled with notable discretion. Muhammad reportedly arrived at the Cantonment police station on his own on Tuesday evening, and the police moved quietly to finalise the formalities, a move many link to his prominent standing as a left-leaning public figure and former legislator. During his interrogation, Muhammad reportedly denied all charges, maintaining that the allegations against him were entirely false and fabricated.
The legal trouble began after the complainant submitted a petition directly to Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, leading the police to register an FIR on December 8. The filmmaker has been booked under Sections 74 and 75(1) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), which cover using force to outrage a woman’s modesty and sexual harassment.
The complaint filed alleged that the incident occurred at a hotel in Thiruvananthapuram during a meeting in connection with the International Film Festival of Kerala, IFFK 2025.
Though the statement of the woman has been recorded and CCTV footage of the hotel concerned has been secured by the investigators, a background of some controversy always dogged the case: questions have been raised consistently about the time-frame of the investigation into the issue, notably why the police took such a long time to officially register the case after the initial petition was filed.
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