THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Sanal Kumar Sasidharan, the director of ‘Sexy Durga’, on Wednesday alleged that the life of actor Manju Warrier was in danger and that she was being held hostage. In a Facebook post, Sanal alleged that Manju was under the rule of her manager and she was not allowed to take her own decisions.
He also cast doubts on the progress of the probe into the 2017 actor assault saying the investigating officer was transferred shortly after the statement of Manju, who is a witness, was recorded. He began the post saying: “This is a post written with a lot of responsibility and awareness regarding the consequences. So, I urge you to take it seriously.” Sanal recalled Manju had contacted him after watching ‘Sexy Durga’ and said she wanted to do a film.
“That is how the movie ‘Kayattam’ came about. However, while working on it, he never got a chance to speak to her alone,” he said, adding that Bineesh Chandran and Binu Nair, who were her assistants and later became executive producers of the movie, would never leave her side. Sanal said he felt there were attempts to stop the film’s release and shared his concern with Manju.
“When I realised the intervention of Manju’s manager was affecting the release, I stopped interacting with him,” said Sanal. He said he tried to meet Manju when she came to Kottayam for a restaurant’s inauguration recently, but her security guards forcibly took her away in a car so that she does not talk to him. “Manju Warrier called me the next morning, but I was not in the right frame of mind to talk. I called her later, but the call went unanswered. I do not know what to do as the issues are so complex that I can not speak out. I called one or two of her friends.
They talked but responded helplessly. I shared a short post on Instagram as I could not sit idle. In it, the main thing I said was that I had admiration for her,” he said. Sanal continued: “Surprisingly, I got a call the next morning from a person claiming to be the Aroor police station CI. He claimed Manju had complained to him about my post. I found it strange. I asked why she should complain to him without him having any jurisdiction. The conversation, which began gently, turned into threats and I asked him to move legally. He hung up.”