“I am a survivor, not a victim”: Bhavana Menon on assault case involving Mollywood actor Dileep
"The attack on Bhavana Menon reportedly took place in 2017 when she was returning to Kochi after a shooting assignment on the outskirts of the city"
New Delhi: After coming out as a survivor in a 2017 assault case involving Mollywood actor Dileep, Bhavana Menon has finally opened up about the struggle and trauma she had to go through in the last five years.
In an interview with the YouTube channel, ‘The Mojo Story’, Menon said, “It happened in 2017 and my whole life was turned upside down. And my mind was constantly searching for something and somebody to find and like you know so that I can put the blame on and I will have an easy exit because It was constant chaos in my mind. I was constantly asking myself why I and so many questions. For instance, in 2017, my father passed away, so I was thinking if I was alone this wouldn’t have happened to me, or if I didn’t shoot that day, this wouldn’t have happened. So there were so many what-ifs”.
“One time I used to think that it’s a long nightmare was constantly blaming myself. There were so many times, I desperately wanted to go back to the time before it happened so that I could change everything and my life will be normal again”, she added.
While talking about the court trials, she explained, “My trial happened in the year 2020 and I had to go to court for 15 days. Those 15 days when I was in the court, was a whole different level of traumatic experience. So when I came out of the court on the last day, after 15 hearings, I was feeling like a survivor and realized that I am a survivor not a victim anymore. If I survive this, then I’m not just standing up for myself but also for the dignity of all the women who will come after me”.
Recalling the devastating times when she was accused by many for staging the assault, and even insulting her family she said, “I was devastated my dignity was shredded to a million pieces. I wanted to scream top of my lungs and say my parents didn’t raise me like that, it was an insult to my family. And because I wasn’t on social media, I kinda torched the personal attack but in 2019 when I joined Instagram, I got some really mean messages like why don’t you die, why don’t you kill yourself, how will you die and all these made me think what did I do”.
For the unversed, the attack on Bhavana Menon reportedly took place in 2017 when she was returning to Kochi after a shooting assignment on the outskirts of the city. Her vehicle was allegedly waylaid, and she was abducted by a criminal gang in a closed van.