Ever since Tanushree Dutta spoke out about the sexual harassment she faced in the film industry and accused film actor Nana Patekar of sexually abusing her, many people have spoken out in support of Dutta. Many have even questioned why did she stay quiet all these years, but the fact is she had spoken up the time the alleged incident took place as well, and even later, but it still took 10 long years for people in the powerful position to speak out and come out in her support.

A video, possibly from a filmy gossip show, from ten years back has resurfaced from the sets of ‘Horn Ok Please’ where Tanushree can be seen walking away from the set, visibly upset.

The voiceover, in the above video, mentions how as per the script, Tanushree had to dance on an ‘item song’ and Nana Patekar had to touch her, which Tanushree didn’t like. The woman voiceover artist, then condescendingly says,

Madam (Dutta) then moved towards her vanity van which stalled the shooting of the item song for full 3 hours. And despite lot of pleading, she refused to come back to the sets. This is nothing. Things worsened when her (Dutta’s) bodyguards acted strictly towards the media and the police was called in. Tanushree’s tantrums could’ve cost the producers a loss of Rs. 1.5 crore. To save that, Tanushree was removed and Rakhi Sawant was called in.”

Rest of the video talks about how Rakhi stepped in to save the day. We will save that for another day. But first, let us talk about the video.

First of all, why is the filmy gossip show referring to the allegations of Tanushree as ‘tantrums’? Part of the footage was then shared on social media by claims that the people jumping on Tanushree’s car were the goons/political party karyakartas called by the producer to intimidate Dutta. Actor Renuka Shahane shared a video with the caption claiming that these goons were called by the producer.

The video shared by Shahane is here:

But are these really goons from a political party? Notice this man in a striped orange t-shirt? He has a video recording camera in his hands. Which political party sends its goons to video record their deeds where they terrify people? Oh wait, could it be someone from the media who were present there who decided to unleash their inner goon?

At first, it appears like he is being restrained by others present there.

Now, the orange t-shirt fellow is bravely showing off how macho he is by giving Dutta a flat tyre. While Dutta is sitting inside that car and dozens are banging on the window and jumping on the roof of her car already. Nope, not terrifying at all.

And our braveheart decides to climb the car bonnet. Sweet. Why are these ‘political goons’ doing this? Did they come on behest of the producer and Nana Patekar as it is being widely talked about?

One Aditya Kumar, who claims to be a former Sahara employee, says that this incident of harassment is from another time and these goons are not political goons but Sahara channel crew.

This is corroborated by one Aakansha Sharma, who also claims to be a former Sahara employee.

The orange t-shirt braveheart is identified as one Pawan Bhardwaj by the former colleagues of his, who think he just reacted to Dutta ‘abusing’ one of their teammates and broke their camera. But then, going back to the first video from the filmy gossip which also talks about the harassment on the sets of Horn Ok Please, we could see the same orange t-shirt fellow being taken away in a police van.

The voiceover artist had mentioned how the reporters lost their cool when Dutta’s bodyguards ‘misbehaved’ with them. After all, how dare you mess with the press?

So what exactly is it? Who attacked Dutta? From the information which is available, the following can be concluded:

The goons who attacked Tanushree were perhaps not from a political party, but from the journalism fraternity. Two separate videos with seemingly separate footage make it probable that both the videos are from the same incident when Dutta complained of harassment by Nana Patekar The journalists lost their cool when Dutta’s bodyguards ‘misbehaved’ or perhaps just asked them to back off from a traumatised woman. Perhaps they were just being sensitive towards a woman who had complained of sexual harassment and expected basic human decency from the photo and video journalists to leave the woman alone as she deals with it. Why are journalists creating a ruckus are being passed off as political party goons? And if Nana Patekar has indeed misbehaved with Dutta, the law will take its course. Even after 10 or more years, he may pay for his deeds, but what about the journalists? What about these men who traumatised Dutta? Who is going to pay for it? Media conflating the issue when people from their own fraternity seem involved in harassing her is a travesty. Police being a mute spectator is even worse. But did they keep quiet because ‘media se panga kaun le’? Who really wants to mess with goons armed with camera and pen? And what about the filmy gossip ‘journalist’ who referred to the incident as ‘tantrum’? Why did she have to belittle the allegations?

Heart goes out to Dutta for having the courage to speak up and stand up against the mighty and the powerful. It is about time people not only speak up but also introspect on how sensitively and sensibly issues are handled.