Actor Nana Patekar dismissed allegations of misbehaviour against him by actress Tanushree Dutta in a quote to the news channel Mirror Now. The actor added that he might consider 'legal action' against the actress for those charges.
Speaking to Mirror Now, the actor said, "People say whatever they want. What should I do? Tell me." On being asked what he had to say to Dutta's accusation of him sexually assaulting her on the sets, Patekar said, "What does she mean by sexual harrassment? We are on the set and there are 50-100 people present. I will see what I have to do legally now."
Dutta had accused Patekar of sexually assaulting her on the sets of the film Horn 'Ok' Pleassss (2009) in 2008. The actress had also alleged that Patekar had a history of such behaviour towards women. In addition, she had accused the film's director Rakesh Sarang, producer Sami Siddiqui and choreographer Ganesh Acharya of being complicit in the act.
Patekar's denial comes a day after Acharya dismissed the allegations while speaking to News18, a news channel. "First of all, it’s a very old incident so I can’t really recall everything very clearly. But it was a duet song as far as I remember. Something did happen that day because the shooting was also stalled for over three hours. There was some sort of misunderstanding. But I can confirm that nothing of this sort happened. It’s a wrong statement that Nanaji called members of some political party on set. It never happened," he said.
Dutta alleged that despite her complaint, nobody on set had spoken up for her, even as her vehicle was damaged by 'members of the political party'. Dutta eventually opted out of the song and the film.
The actress has also suggested that the film industry on a whole remains 'hypocritical' in its approach towards sexual harassment.
The statement echoes in the responses of Amitabh Bachchan and Aamir Khan, who sidestepped the question on Dutta's allegations at the recent Thugs Of Hindostan trailer launch.
On being asked for a response, Bachchan stated that he was neither 'Tanushree' nor 'Nana' and could not answer the question, while Khan maintained a more diplomatic stance, saying, "Well, I think without knowing the veracity or details of something, I don't I can comment on it. It is not right for me to either way comment on it. But I would like to say that whenever something like this does happens, it is a really sad thing."