MUMBAI: Veteran Bollywood actor Nana Patekar who has been accused of sexual harassment by Tanushree Dutta refuted all charges leveled against him here on Monday.
"My lawyers have asked me not to speak about the issue with the media. We have sent a legal notice to Tanushree Datta and I won't be able to comment on the case till the procedure is complete. I am saying what I said 10 years back, the truth doesn't change," Patekar told the media gathered outside his residence after he cancelled his press conference at the least minute earlier in the day.
Former actor Tanushree Dutta has accused Nana Patekar of sexually harassing her on the sets of the unreleased film, Horn Ok Pleassss, in 2008.
Patekar, in the legal notice, has demanded an apology. Datta, who had raised the issue in social media about a fortnight back, lodged a formal complaint at the Oshiwara police station in the western suburbs of Mumbai. She has also named choreographer Ganesh Acharya, producer Sami Siddiqi, Director Rakesh Sarang and even the Maharashtra Navanirman Sena (MNS) of Raj Thackeray in her complaint.
Last week Shiv Sena leader and Minister of State for Home Deepak Kesarkar had invited a controversy by praising Patekar for his social initiatives.
He had also pointed out that the government is unable to take any action in the case as no complaint has been filed in the case.
While the Bollywood was seen divided over the issue, the Nana Patekar-Tanushree Dutta controversy appears to have led to spreading the #MeToo movement rocking the entertainment, news media and stand-up comedy industries. Recently, filmmaker Vikas Bahl was accused of sexually molesting a former employee in 2015.
Actor Kangana Ranaut also accused Bahl of misconduct during the shoot of their 2014 film Queen. Comedians Utsav Chakraborty, Gursimran Khamba and Tanmay Bhatt of the AIB comedy collective have been accused of varying degrees of harassment.
Several senior journalists too are facing accusations by their former women colleagues and some of them have been made to resign by their respective organizations.