Actor Thiagarajan denies harassment allegation by a female photographer

Actor Thiagarajan who was last seen in Mani Ratnam‘s Chekka Chivantha Vaanam has been accused of harassment by a female photographer a few days ago. The woman, Pretika Menon took to Facebook to share details of her interaction with the director/actor. In her post, she said that Thiagarajan knocked her room thrice in the odd hours of the night. He would also ask her personal and uncomfortable questions during the shoot. She posted ”Thyagarajan would keep finding me on set and urging me to be near him, he started to tell me about his Thai masseuse girls and how wonderful they were. He insinuates that he was sleeping with them. I asked him if his wife didn’t mind.. And he told me that his wife and daughter had no clue. Then I asked him if he’d be okay if they had similar experiences. Thyagarajan said that if his wife or daughter ever did something like that he would kill them himself.”

Now, Thiagarajan is said to file a defamation case against the woman for putting his reputation at stake. He further went on to say ”The day she said I reportedly knocked at her door was baseless, because I was shooting the whole night from the previous evening till the next morning, Also, she has mentioned the shooting took place at an erected set near Coimbatore. Actually, we shot in an actual fort called Ranjankudi in Perambalur for a war sequence, which involved 2,000 junior artistes playing soldiers. And the shoot was on continuously for three days from 6 pm to the next morning. Nasser, Lakshmi Ramakrishnan and Ponvannan among other actors were also there. I had introduced two girls Miss India pageant winners Pooja Chopra and Divya Parameshwaran as heroines. I am not that desperate to do such a thing in a film whose story was written by the then CM Kalaignar Karunanidhi.”

Women are sharing their horror stories of dealing with harassment and sexual assault from colleagues or people in powerful positions their workplace.