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Director Mansore fears explicit scenes in Nathicharami might worsen social media attacks on Sruthi


The actress has filed a police complaint of sexual harassment against Kannada action star Arjun Sarja.

Keyur Seta

Kannada actress Sruthi Hariharan filed a complaint against actor Arjun Sarja in Bangalore last week for allegedly harassing her sexually during the shooting of their film Vismaya in 2015. A few days before that, she had named him in the ongoing #MeToo campaign.

The actress is currently under fire on social media by Sarja’s fans. Now, Mansore, director of her latest film Nathicharami, has expressed the fear that attacks on her might increase after his film is released as the actress has performed some sexually explicit scenes in it.

The director was speaking after the screening of the film at the Mumbai Film Festival on Wednesday.

“The movie has been screened just when the #MeToo movement is going on. But I fear one thing," he said. "When we were scripting the film, I had no fear of the film being accepted by those who are fussy about social morals. But now the actor’s [Sarja’s] fans are making accusations against Sruthi’s character. I fear that if my movie is released they will damage her character on social media due to her 'bold' scenes in the film.” 

Mansore agreed with the host that people might not understand the difference between reel and real. “One of her allegations is bad touch [by Sarja] during the rehearsals. They [Sarja’s fans] might say, ‘But she is doing such bold scenes here [in the film]’,” the director said. 

As reported by the IANS news agency, Sruthi has accused Arjun Sarja of making unwelcome sexual advances and gestures to outrage her modesty besides intimidating her over a period of time. 

In the latest update in the case, Sarja moved the Karnataka high court yesterday seeking that the FIR against him be squashed.

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MAMI Sexual harassment