Almost a year after the #MeToo movement took down Hollywood heavyweights in the West, the movement has now hit India as well. While actress Tanushree Dutta's allegation of sexual harassment against Nana Patekar on the set of 2008 film Horn Ok Pleassss gained momentum, many people from the industry finally started speaking about their ugly experiences.
Not only in Hollywood or Bollywood, but few actors from the Indian television industry have also witnessed similar situations where they were sexually harassed on set while shooting. On October 10, Sandhya Mridul narrated a harrowing incident where Alok Nath would get drunk and harass her night after night. She put out a long post on Twitter in which she said that Nath, who was playing her father in the show, came to her hotel room in an inebriated state.
Here’s her post:
https://twitter.com/sandymridul/status/1049905872439263234
Previously, there have been few other television actresses who openly spoke about their horrific experiences of being sexually harassed, but unfortunately, no action was taken against anyone. Actors including Paridhi Sharma, Helen Fonseca and Shilpa Shinde were sexually harassed on the set of their show. In fact, they openly spoke about it too.
Take a look:
Paridhi Sharma:
In 2014, Jodha Akbar’s lead actress Paridhi Sharma had accused her director Santram Verma for sexually and mentally harassing her on the set in Karjat. It was also reported in certain sections of the media that producer Ekta Kapoor had allegedly received complaints against Santram but she chose to ignore them. Before Paridhi, another actress Ankita Dubey had also accused Santram for sexually harassing her.
However, Santram denied all such allegations by saying that there were just some creative differences between the two and nothing more. On the other hand, Paridhi continued to work. Apparently, Ekta intervened into the matter when Paridhi threatened to quit the show where she asked Santram to be professional on the set.
Helen Fonseca:
In 2015, television actor Sai Ballal was arrested by the Borivali branch of Mumbai Police after his co-star; Helen Fonseca from serial Udaan accused him of sending sexually explicit videos on her cell phone. Ballal was arrested from the set of Udaan and later granted anticipatory bail.
Surprisingly, Helen was thrown out of the show immediately; whereas Sai Ballal continued to work for more than a year in the same show.
Shilpa Shinde:
Last year, Shilpa Shide had filed an FIR against Sanjay Kohli, the producer of her last show Bhabhiji Ghar Par Hai, accusing him of sexual harassment. The actor had said that during those days, it all started out as a joke, but later on things went out of control.
“In our industry everything is taken lightly. Guys say so many things and if you react to them, they go like - ‘we are kidding’. Things like – ‘You are looking, hot sexy’ - are common. Sanjay ji used to come on the set and while Benaifer would take care of all the paperwork, he would be the one who would talk like this to us,” Shilpa Shinde said.
The actress was thrown out of the show.
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