Trigger Warning: The following article contains details about sexual assault and violence. The details may be traumatic for survivors. Reader discretion is advised.
Payal Rohatgi, who had accused director Dibakar Banerjee of harassment back in 2011, has said that in the wake of the #MeToo movement in Bollywood it is to be hoped that YRF would take some action against him. Banerjee is currently helming YRF’s Sandeep Aur Pinky Faraar starring Arjun Kapoor and Parineeti Chopra.
“Dibakar did six films after that. He doesn’t look like a villain, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that he used his sob story of a bad marriage to make a move. I didn’t file an FIR against him because I was intimidated. In the wake of #MeToo, I hope things will be different. I don’t know if YRF [Yash Raj Films, producer of Sandeep Aur Pinky Faraar] will take a stand. YRF knows about Dibakar,” Rohtagi told Mid Day.
The actor had accused the director of propositioning her and asking her to “lift her shirt” for a role in his film, Shanghai. The actor also shared how she stopped receiving work after she called Banerjee out.
“I was working opposite actors like Irrfan and Paresh Rawal. But after I held the press conference, no one called me for an audition again. I stopped getting films. So I had to move to television. I kept myself alive with stage shows. It was a case of one brother backing another. According to Anurag [Kashyap], I was having an affair with Dibakar. But if I were hypothetically having an affair, that still doesn’t make Dibakar right; he was married at that time,” she said
She is however not keen to pursue any legal action as she doesn’t want her family and fiance to go through the trauma.
Source: Mid Day
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