#MeToo has enabled several women to come forward with their stories of harassment. The space created by this global movement is responsible for sending the likes of Bill Cosby and Harvey Weinstein to jail to pay for the damage done to women. It was this movement that even encouraged local singer and actress Meesha Shafi to come forward with her narrative.
Adding the category of women braving their story is Bollywood actress Tanushree Dutta. Dutta recently disclosed that she experienced harassment at the hands of veteran Bollywood actor Nana Patekar.
Though previously she only mentioned that she had to tolerate the inappropriate behavior of one of her co-stars, she has finally named him. In a recent interview with Zoom TV, Dutta stated: “I want to take names – actor Nana Patekar, producer Sami Siddiqui, director Rakesh Sarang, and choreographer Ganesh Acharya. When Nana Patekar misbehaved with me, he said out loud that he would do an intimate step with me in the song, which wasn’t mentioned in my contract. It was supposed to be a solo sequence of mine. I would feel very uncomfortable when he would come next to me and try to put his arm around me.” 
Furthermore, she added that Patekar would often approach her inappropriately grabbing her arm and forcing her to do intimate scenes with him. Dutta reveals that he also harassed her calling her a mediocre dancer who needed to be taught to do certain moves. Dutta did not shy away from claiming that Patekar’s unethical and inappropriate work ethic is no secret. She remarked that his attitude is quintessentially disrespectful towards his female co-stars.
She alleged: “He has beaten actresses, he has molested them, his behavior with women has always been crude but no publication has printed anything about it.”
Dutta claimed that since she was the first one to speak about sexual harassment, it compromised her career and no action was taken against her statements. Instead, Dutta stopped receiving work and was also immediately replaced by Rakhi Sawant in the film “Horn Ok Pleasss” after refusing to work with Patekar. 