Actress Tanushree Dutta, who has been at the forefront of the #MeToo movement in India, has called out actor Ajay Devgn for choosing to work with Alok Nath, who has been accused of rape and harassment by multiple women.
Actress Vinta Nanda filed an FIR alleging rape against Nath, who was given anticipatory bail. Days later, actress Sandhya Mridul came forward with her account of facing harassment by Nath.
In an open letter, Dutta said Bollywood was “full of liars, showoffs and spineless hypocrites.”
During the #MeToo wave in October, Devgn had tweeted in support of the movement.
In her letter, Dutta wrote, “Tinsel town is full of liars, showoffs and spineless hypocrites. And it seems by a large public consensus that the signpost is pointing currently at Ajay Devgn. During the #metoo movement in India the actor had tweeted and sworn never to work with those accused and now in a surprising and convenient turn of events is Working with rape and harassment accused Alok Nath and supporting him make a comeback to Bollywood. Doesn’t this prove yet again that your big Bollywood heroes are truly zeroes!”
“Overrated actors and human beings who have created a clout by clever PR machinery and careful manipulation of public sentiments, old stuffy morons who can’t tell the difference between what’s right and wrong and what is the need of the hour!” she added.
About Devgn’s decision to work with Nath in De De Pyaar De, she said,
“Would it be so difficult to just edit out Alok Nath’s portions in the film and hire someone else and reshoot those bits even before the film promotions started?? Nobody even knew before the posters and trailers that Alok Nath is in the film so if Ajay Devgan and the makers wanted they could have just quietly replaced him and re-shot his portions (which is barely 10-15 days for character actors in Bollywood )and given Vinta Nanda the respect she deserves as well as several other women who were troubled by this guy but No! they had to keep the alleged rapist in their film and rub it on not only Vinta’s but on all our faces as a show of solidarity with all rapists, molesters and harassers of Bollywood and an even greater show of arrogance and defiance against all things morally and conscientiously right.”
She further wrote, “If you dig deep you will find skeletons in their closets so horrendous that it will totally makes sense why they would stand supporting the accused rapists, harassers and abusers and why their conscience doesn’t prick them while doing so and why they give evasive answers when questioned. Birds of a feather always flock together and that’s why perhaps it doesn’t bother some of these people to work with a guy who has been accused by several women of horrendous behaviour and that’s why there’s always an excuse.”