In the past few days, everyone has been talking about Sreelakshmi Satheesh, a motivational speaker and education consultant who works in Kochi. The way she faced the pervert, who harassed her and set Rs 25,000 as her price, by finding him and making him donate the money to a charity home, set an example for all women.
The episode happened on December 22 when Sreelakshmi got a call from an unknown number at 11.30 pm. The male voice on the other end asked her if he could get her in exchange for money. “I was shocked,” Sreelakshmi says adding, “I was sleeping and it took me a few minutes to comprehend things. I cut the call, but he kept calling. Then, I started receiving calls from other numbers. I panicked and switched off the phone.”
Sreelakshmi would give her visiting card to students in schools and colleges after motivational classes. She thought that someone might have misused it and decided to trace the person behind it.
She called back to the first number and asked him to go through her Facebook profile before putting a price tag on her.
“My Facebook profile has posts about my social activities and classes. Anybody who goes through it would get a clear idea about me,” she says.
“When my tone became firm, he panicked and apologised. He is a degree second year student. I told him that I would inform the cops and asked to give the phone to his parents. His father is a teacher and mother, a housewife, who didn’t even know what WhatsApp is. His parents started pleading for their son. I asked him for the source from where he got my number. The number was shared by a boy in my neighbourhood who always treated me respectfully. He shared it on a WhatsApp group with the tag line ‘super sadhanama’. Since it was a WhatsApp contact, my photo was also there.”
The next morning, she spoke to the boy who shared her number. He first denied doing it and then said it was shared unknowingly. However, soon Sreelakshmi got a call from the youth wing leader of a political party to save him.
“I couldn’t bear a party worker talking in favour of a person who put my honour at stake. I gave him an earful. I told him to come to my home with the boy’s parents the next day to discuss the matter,” Sreelakshmi says.
It was Christmas and they didn’t come. She called the leader and eventually they came to meet Sreelakshmi on December 26. When the boy’s father begged for his son, Sreelakshmi decided to drop the case against him, but put forward two demands — that the boy should donate Rs 25,000 to a charity home and the party should expel him.
“I said Rs 25,000 because that was the amount the final caller had decided. I wanted the party to expel him because if someone like him is part of a political party, where is our safety?,” she says.
She got threat calls from the same party leader who wanted the settlement amount to be reduced. But Sreelakshmi was adamant. Finally, on December 28, they remitted Rs 25,000 at Sree Chithra Poor Home in Thiruvananthapuram. However, she is not sure if the boy was expelled from the party.
When she posted about the incident on Facebook, many said that it was done for popularity.
“I posted it on Facebook for my safety. I hail from a simple family and a political party is involved in this. If anything happens in future, everyone would ask why I remained silent when it had happened,” she adds.
But Sreelakshmi seldom imagined that it would go viral. “I am happy that it could inspire many women,” she says. Sreelakshmi is now planning to form a panel of five on Facebook for women to share their problems.
“There will be a panel for each district. If I could get KELSA (Kerala State Legal Services Authority) support, it would be more effective. The panel would listen to the problems and punish the accused. If a woman is found guilty, she would also be treated the same way.
