#MeToo India: Police dismiss Tanushree Dutta's sexual harassment case against Nana Patekar

MUMBAI: The first high profile #MeToo case in India has hit rock-bottom when in a devastating move, police closed the sexual harassment case filed by former Indian actress Tanushree Dutta against veteran Indian film star Nana Patekar.

According to Times of India, Mumbai police filed a closure report in court stating that Dutta's case lacks evidence against the accused.

Dutta's lawyer, Nitin Satpute further said, "We haven’t yet received any official communication from the police yet. However, we will challenge the closure report."

Tanushree Dutta is credited to have brought the revolutionary #MeToo movement in India when in 2008, she accused an unnamed actor of misbehaving with her on the sets of film 'Horn OK Pleassss'.

In 2018, she returned to India from the US to disclose it was Nana Patekar.

"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 said during an interview.

After a month after the allegation, Dutta filed a harassment case with the Mumbai police against Patekar.

She had also said she received "violent threats" from the fringe, far-right nationalist group Maharashtra Navnirman Sena - the political party Patekar is a part of - and that she has been made a target of a "smear campaign" on social media since reiterating her claims against the influential actor.