After days of denial, veteran actor Nana Patekar has stepped out of Housefull 4 in the wake of serious exual harassment charges leveleld by actor Tanushree Dutta. Patekar had served a legal notice after the actress alleged that Patekar had sexually harassed her in 2008 on the sets of Horn Ok Pleassss.
“Nana saheb thought of the convenience of everybody as he wishes the best for the producer [and] the crew [and] hence felt that stepping out of the project would be an appropriate thing to do at this point of time,”Patekar’s son son Malhar Nana Patekar, was quoted by news agency ANI. He, however, did not explain as to why his father had suddenly decided to quit the film.
Housefull 4 was recently in news after its director Sajid Khan decided to step away from the project as he faced allegations of serious sexual misconduct from an actress, Saloni Chopra. Chopra’s allegations had prompted actor Akshay Kumar to react strongly, asking the producer to halt the film’s shooting.
Sajid’s sister Farah Khan and cousin Farhan Akhtar too had issued strong statements adding that he had a lot to atone for.
Meanwhile, Tanushree’s lawyer has demanded that Patekar be subjected to a lie-detector test. Her lawyer Nitin Satpute submitted an application at the Oshiwara police station in Mumbai on Saturday saying that actor Nana Patekar, choreographer Ganesh Acharya, producer Samee Siddiqui and director Rakesh Sarang be made to undergo narco-analysis, brain mapping and lie detector tests, reported news agency PTI.
Based on Tanushree’s complaint, the Mumbai Police last week had registered an FIR against the four.