The latest celebrity name that has surfaced in the ongoing #MeToo movement is of Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput. However, he has denied sexual misconduct towards his Kizzie Aur Manny co-star Sanjana Sanghi. Responding to the rumours, Sushant shared screenshots of their text conversation and called it a "smear campaign".
Sushant took to social media to share snapshots of his conversation with Sanjana from the first day to the last day of the film's shoot, and captioned it: "I feel sad to reveal personal information but it seems that there is no other way to state what was, in the midst of this curated and well-timed smear campaign.
"From the first till the last day of the shoot, this is what happened on the set with Sanjana."
The grapevine is abuzz with the rumours of the 32-year-old actor behaving inappropriately with the leading lady on the sets. Several reports state that Sushant made her feel "uncomfortable" with his "overly friendly behaviour" during the shoot in Jamshedpur.
On Thursday, Twitterati pointed at Sushant's missing blue verification tick on the micro-blogging platform following the claims. However, Sushant clarified: "For all those deliberately using the missing of Twitter blue tick to substantiate their false claims, allow me to tell you that it is not there since September 5. Get your facts checked before jumping to conclusions that you so eagerly want to.''
The film's director and popular casting director Mukesh Chhabra has spoken out in support of Sushant. "I totally stand by Sushant. No such incident happened on the sets and let's not have a Twitter trial and make an innocent person suffer for somebody else's ulterior motives. I had clarified this on twitter long back and I still maintain it," Chhabra, who too has been accused by a woman of sexual harassment, tweeted. Production House Fox Star India has suspended the services of Chhabra till the inquiry is completed, reads an official statement.
The #MeToo movement in India triggered after actress and former beauty queen Tanushree Dutta in September recalled an unsavoury episode with veteran actor Nana Patekar from the sets of Horn OK Please in 2008. So far, women from several fields have called out their harassers on social media platforms
(With IANS inputs)
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