Spoke up to defend myself, not to become hero, says Tanushree Dutta

Tanushree Dutta, who kickstarted the #MeToo movement in India after reiterating her decade-old harassment allegations against Nana Patekar, Tuesday said such cases are not taken seriously in India but she is confident that she will get justice.

"I am hoping I will get justice. But not figured out what kind of justice I will get. There are rules and regulations, things are tweaked and twisted and there is corruption so justice gets delayed.

"Harassment cases are not taken seriously in our country. One is told to forget about it. This is the attitude but by allowing it you are creating an evil environment. I am in the fight and I know I will be getting retribution," Tanushree said at Manthan Aaj-Tak event.

In September, Tanushree spoke about the bitter experience she had while working on a film in 2008 and once again accused her co-star Nana Patekar of sexual harassment while filming a special song.

Though quite a few industry people have shown their support to Tanushree, there are many who have stayed mum and the actor said the biggies are not talking about it as they view her allegations as a controversy.

"I was on national TV for ten years, I had a career in films and I had a career to lose. There was a situation where I had to defend myself. I did not speak because I wanted to be a hero but I wanted to defend myself."
She is glad that today naming and shaming is happening and "if men are scared then they should be."
"This I did not say with any motive. This all came as a surprise to me. There are women who are still hesitant to speak up. This is just a tip of the iceberg."
"Everything has happened, like threatening of legal notice, MNS threat, smear campaign, all this happened ten years ago."
"Somebody who called me a liar and did not have the basic intelligence to see the situation and apologise and redeem, do you think I talk to him? Why waste my time? My regret is how could I work with these people. How could I not see it. I should have got the instinct that these are not the people I would gel with."
"It is going to be what 'he said' and 'she said'. In my case, I have evidence. There are so many cases, where assault or rape has happened behind closed doors. You cannot put the onus on the victim or else women will have to put camera on their forehead everytime, if we have to prove things."
"We have to be a part of change and transformation, why pass the buck to others? It needs little bit of discomfort and sacrifice or else we will move towards complete anarchy."