Actor Celina Jaitly has opened up about facing harassment on multiple accounts when she was in school, lamenting how it is always the victim who is at fault.
The actor's comments come amid the ongoing protests following the alleged rape and murder of a woman doctor in Calcutta's R G Kar Medical College and Hospital on August 9.
In a lengthy X post shared on Saturday, titled "The Victim is Always at Fault", Jaitly said it was about time to "stand up and ask for our right to be protected" as women are not at fault.
Sharing her picture from Class 6, the actor recalled how boys from a nearby university would wait for her outside school and would follow her rickshaw making catcalls all the way home everyday.
"I pretended not to notice them and a few days later because of that they started throwing stones at me in the middle of the road to get my attention. Not one bystander batted an eye. I was told by a teacher: It was because I was 'too westernised and did not wear loose clothes and did not tie my hair in two braids with oil it was my fault!'" she wrote.
"It was also at this age when a man first flashed his private parts to me while waiting for the school rickshaw in the morning. For many years I blamed myself for this incident which I kept to myself running the words of the teacher again and again in my mind that it was MY FAULT!" she added.
When she was in Class 11, the actor said the university boys cut the wires of her two-wheeler because she ignored them. They continued to heckle her, call her names and leave lewd notes on her vehicle.
After her protective male classmates informed the teaching staff about her facing harassment, Jaitly said the class teacher blamed her for being a "forward type of girl, riding a scooty and wearing jeans to extra classes with short open hair".
"'That's why boys think you are of a loose character'. It was always my fault. I still remember that day jumping off my scooty to save myself because of my brake wires being cut off. I was hurt badly and yet it was my fault. My Scooty was damaged… I was both physically and psychologically hurt… And I was told it was MY FAULT!" the now 42-year-old wrote.
"It's time to stand up and ask for our right to be protected WE ARE NOT AT FAULT ! #kolkatadoctordeath," she added.
In her previous post on X, the actor said the atrocities against women have continued even since 2012's "gut wrenching" Delhi gang rape and murder case.
"No lessons learnt, no lessons taught and no fear instilled within our society to prevent this from happening. We live in a society that teaches women to be careful not to get raped instead of teaching men NOT TO RAPE. I will never understand why it is more shameful to be raped than to be a rapist.
"Rape is the only crime in which the victim gets accused. A Victim waits for 15 years to get Justice and the culprit gets just 10 years of imprisonment. The path to justice is painfully, heartbreakingly and unsafely slow.... We cry tears of blood as we wait to be safe, protected & free!" Jaitly wrote.
Previously, actors Hrithik Roshan, Alia Bhatt, Kareena Kapoor Khan, Kriti Sanon, Vijay Varma and Twinkle Khanna, demanded justice in the rape and murder of a postgraduate trainee physician in Calcutta, while expressing solidarity with doctors protesting over the case.
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