Nana Patekar reportedly laughed in response to Tanushree Dutta's harassment allegations

Nana Patekar has responded to the recent allegations of sexual misconduct by actress Tanushree Dutta.

As reported by Hindustan Times, the actor laughed when questioned about the incident and asked, “What does she mean by sexual harassment? There were 50-100 people on set with me.”

Patekar, who had remained unavailable for comment since the news broke also told Mirror Now, “What can I do about it? You tell me,” and contemplated taking legal action.

Dutta, who had previously shared in 2008 that a fellow co-star had behaved with her inappropriately on set, named the veteran actor as her harasser in a recent interview.

"I want to take names - actor Nana Patekar, producer Sami Siddiqui, director Rakesh Sarang and choreographer Ganesh Acharya. When Nana Patekar misbehaved with me, he said out loud that he would do an intimate step with me in the song, which wasn’t mentioned in my contract. It was supposed to be a solo sequence of mine. I would feel very uncomfortable when he would come next to me and try to put his arm around me," she said in an interview with Zoom TV.

"He was grabbing me by the arms, pushing me around then he would ask the choreographers to move and teach me how to dance, and the next thing I know he wanted to do was an intimate sequence with me. It was ridiculous.”

She adds: “Everyone knows about Nana Patekar that he has always been disrespectful towards women. People in the industry know about his background, that he has beaten actresses, he has molested them, his behaviour with women has always been crude but no publication has printed anything about it.”