Women and child development minister Maneka Gandhi has stressed on the need to have a #MeTooIndia movement in India to encourage women to come forward and report.
Union Minister for Women and Child Development Maneka Gandhi has shown her support to Bollywood actress Tanushree Dutta, saying harassment will not be tolerated.
While major Bollywood stars like Amitabh Bachchan and Salman Khan have refused to take sides on the issue, some actors like Aamir Khan, Priyanka Chopra, Sonam Kapoor and Swara Bhasker have indirectly or directly voiced their support to Tanushree Dutta.
When asked about accusations made by Tanushree, the minister said harassment of any kind will not be tolerated. “We should start something like #MeTooIndia in which any woman who is being harassed at any point of time should write to us and we should investigate,” Maneka Gandhi Gandhi told TV channels.
She also pressed for a 'Me Too India' movement, akin to the Me Too Movement that has rocked Hollywood and most of Europe in the entertainment industry.
"Now, (after) this incident, I also feel that we should start something called 'Me Too India', in which any woman who is being harassed at any point should write to us. But for the first time, the National Commission for Women (NCW) is going into every case where the complaint has reached us, and we go into it in detail. We have solved several thousand cases," Gandhi added.
"I don't have any comment to make on this (Tanushree Dutta-Nana Patekar case) yet. But I believe that anybody who has been harassed or believe that they've been harassed, we are trying to get this government and parliament to increase the age to 30 whereby you can complain," she further added.
Watch Maneka Gandhi voice her opinion on the Tanushree Dutta-Nana Patekar sexual harassment case.
Cine And TV Artists' Association on Tuesday stated that the complaint filed by Tanushree Dutta was inappropriately evaluated. "After going through Ms Tanushree Dutta's complaint, which was filed with the then Executive Committee of CINTAA in March 2008, we feel that the decision taken in the Joint Dispute Settlement Committee of CINTAA and IFTPC (then known as AMPTPP) in July 2008 was not appropriate, as the chief grievance of sexual harassment wasn't even addressed," read an excerpt of the statement issued by CINTAA.
The incident allegedly happened on the sets of the 2008 film Horn 'Ok' Pleasss, wherein Tanushree Dutta accused Nana Patekar of misbehaving with her and introducing a lewd dance step for a song. After her complaint, a video of a mob attacking Tanushree Dutta's car has gone viral.
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