Bengaluru: South Indian actress Sruthi Hariharan on Saturday (October 20) accused Action King Arjun Sarja of sexually harassing her on the sets in 2016. He has dismissed the claim. "I was shooting for a bilingual film, which starred Arjun Sarja, a man whose movies I have grown up watching. I was excited about the opportunity," Sruthi Hariharan said in her Facebook post.

During the film rehearsal, the 54-year-old actor Arjun Sarja, who has appeared in multilingual movies, had to perform a romantic scene with the actress, who played his wife in the film.

"During the rehearsal, we delivered our lines, and Mr Arjun hugs me. With no forewarning or permission, he runs his hands intimately up and down my back. He pulls me closer with my body taut against his and asks the director if we could use this idea of foreplay in the scene," Sruthi Hariharan claimed in her Facebook post.

Sruthi Hariharan also said that the director of the film sensed her discomfort as she shared the incident with her makeup team and informed the direction department that she was not interested in being part of rehearsals.

Arjun Sarja, popularly known as 'Action King', has appeared on the screens in more than 150 movies across Kannada, Tamil and Telugu languages. He dismissed the allegations by calling is as "fake".

"The allegations being held against me are entirely baseless. I am shocked to hear such false allegations," Arjun Sarja told media, responding to the sexual harassment allegation.