Qala actress Swastika Mukherjee brought in sexual harassment allegations against Bengali film producer Sandeep Sarkar, who is co-producing her upcoming Bengali film ‘Shibpur’. The actress has further claimed that the producer has threatened her with morphed n*ked pictures and that he would leak them on pornography sites.
Talking to OTT play, the actress said, “It all started pretty randomly. During the entire course of shooting and dubbing, I have never been introduced to Sandeep Sarkar. It was another co-producer Ajanta Sinha Roy who communicated with us. Suddenly, Sandeep Sarkar started sending me threatening emails. He claimed that he was an American citizen and that if I didn’t ‘cooperate’ with them he would get in touch with the US Consulate so that I never get a US visa. He also threatened to drag me to the Police Commissioner, Chief Minister, and so on. Now I have absolutely no idea what this ‘cooperation’ means.”
The actress further added on, saying that she had completed her part in the film already, however, she did not head up for the promotional activities. Later she handed over her dates to the co-producer Sandeep but did not get a revert. The movie was supposed to be released in March, but she got to know the release date changes later from the director.
Swastika also added that it’s not just her who received the emails, but also her manager to get threatening emails from Sandeep Sarkar’s friend Ravish Sharma. Swastika revealed that Ravish Sharma claimed to be a computer hacker and had mentioned that he would morph Swastika’s pictures and leak them on pornography sites.
The Pataal Lok actress added why she chose to be silent about this for so long, saying, “If I wanted, I would have talked to the media about it then. I kept quiet because I wanted the release of Shibpur to be smooth. But it does not seem to end. Everyone will vouch for the fact that I did my job diligently while shooting. I went on time and did everything in my control to portray the character truthfully. This person (Sandeep Sarkar) is saying I have extorted money. I did not get paid a dime extra beyond what was there in the contract.”
According to reports, Swastika has lodged a complaint concerning sexual harassment at Golf Green Police Station, Kolkata. Further, the actress has also reportedly provided scanned copies of the threatening emails to the Eastern India Motion Pictures Association.
