A rape survivor's open letter to Salman for his 'raped woman' comment

This is how an actual raped woman feels…

  Salman Khan’s comment about feeling like a raped woman after going through hours of gruelling exercise session for Sultan led to a massive outrage. Everyone on social media platforms were busy slamming the actor for this insensitive remark. In his defence, he did say he shouldn’t have said this and even requested media to not use the quote. He didn’t say sorry though! People were baffled at the callousness with which he made that remark and received a lot of flak. But all this while it was the commoners who were taking offense and coming out in public about their views, now we have a rape survivor’s letter to him which will make even Salman think before saying anything next time.

Sunitha Krishn, a gang rape survivor and social activist, wrote a letter to the actor calling him a ‘disgrace’. Here are the contents of the letter:

“I do not wish to take the me of the person in question because I feel it would be an act of giving him too much respect. The fact that he could easily compare himself to being raped shows how badly he has trivialised rape and rape culture. The harsh truth is that good looks and some talent made him the star that he is and he takes this role very lightly. With such fame, comes responsibility.

“Instead of being aware of this, he has basically compared the scars, trauma and abuse of a rape victim to his role in a movie. I keep hearing men and women making such remarks and recently too, I found a woman who made a joke along these lines. She used to say ‘I was raped by this’ or ‘I was raped by that’ with no thought on the repercussions of these statements.

“What we need to remember is rape culture is around us and all of these trivialising remarks add to it. As far as I can say, only perverts can make such statements. He is a disgrace.”

Sunitha has always been into service for the society since she was 8 when she started teaching dance to mentally challenged kids. By 12, she was running schools in slum areas for the children there. But while working for Dalit Community at the age of 15, she was gangraped by 8 men which only made her more resolved about her work. So when she is saying something, it’s for every men to hear and not just Salman Khan. (Agencies)