Actor Tanushree Dutta, who has acted in films like Ashiq Banaya Aapne, Raqeeb etc. and was quite the sensation in early 2000s in Bollywood, has in a recent interview revealed that she was allegedly sexually molested and intimidated by none other than actor Nana Patekar. The two were working on a film named Horn OK Please for which Dutta was going to dance on a song.
After a decade, Dutta has claimed that the industry insiders are complacent to Patekar’s indecent behaviour with women. “Everyone knows about Nana Patekar that he has always been disrespectful towards women. People in the industry know about his background... that he has beaten actresses, he has molested them, his behaviour with women has always been crude but no publication has printed anything about it," she told Zoom TV.
She also talked about the #MeToo movement in India and denied its possibility until A-list actors boycott such actors accused of sexual abuse against women. "Akshay Kumar has made few films with Nana Patekar in the last eight years and Rajinikanth also recently worked with him (in Kaala)... If such big stars will keep working with these culprits, then there's no hope for any movement to happen."
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"Everyone has gossiped about this, but they've never spoken. People with this kind of character speak like this against the kind of character that I have because they say she does glamourous roles, so must be glamorous and all. Behind the back, they are so dirty. When you are in the industry, you hear so many stories about these actors. But these things never surface because they PR package it very well. They will give some money to some poor farmers. How much they do and how much they don't, no one knows. But all this is just for show," she added.
While this is the first time that this incident is blowing up on social media, this is not the first time Tanushree has spoken about it. Back in 2008, when she was associated with that movie, she raised her voice against Patekar and others who had behaved inappropriately with her as well as damaged her car and intimidated her.
"Everyone has gossiped about this, but they've never spoken. People with this kind of character speak like this against the kind of character that I have because they say she does glamourous roles, so must be glamorous and all. Behind the back, they are so dirty."
Tanushree revealed that during the filming of that movie, she had complained to the director, Rakesh Sarang, about the alleged misbehaviour by Patekar. However, Sarang did not pay heed to it. To make matters worse, at Patekar’s insistence, he added an intimate scene in the song which originally just had Dutta dancing to it. When Dutta objected, she had to quit the movie and the song went to Rakhi Sawant, who worked on the song without getting a No Objection Certificate from Dutta.
After this incident, Dutta went into depression and has only recently returned to media glare. While the case should and has to go through proper investigation and judicial process, the mere fact that she has spoken up against powerful men in Bollywood, about whom people talk about in whispers, is in itself commendable.
Picture credit- Sakshi
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