Ajay Devgn on #MeToo: There's a difference between 'accused' and 'proven guilty'

Ajay Devgn, in a recent interview with Filmfare, expressed his concern that it is unfair to boycott those who have been accused of sexual harassment but are yet to be proven guilty.

The #MeToo wave swept across the Bollywood sphere last year. Serious allegations of sexual misconduct were leveled against many of those working in the industry. This led to several of the accused, with the likes of Sajid Khan and Nana Patekar, being dropped out of films.

In the interview, Ajay Devgn was asked if it was ethical to work with people who have been accused of sexual harassment. "There's a difference between 'accused' and 'proven guilty'," he said.

"One must definitely not work with those proven guilty. But those who haven't been...we can't be unfair to them. What about their families? I know an 'accused', whose daughter was so traumatised, she stopped eating and going to school," the actor added.

Devgn had found himself amidst a controversy while working with Alok Nath in Akiv Ali's ‘De De Pyaar De’, after the latter was accused of sexual harassment by multiple women.

Ajay had defended himself, saying that the scenes had been shot with the accused actor before the allegations came out.

"Coming to the question of having worked with Mr Alok Nath in my upcoming film De De Pyar De, here I must put certain things in perspective. This film was supposed to be an October 2018 release. The shoot of the film got over by last September. The portions with Mr Alok Nath were canned by August in Manali. The said portions were shot over 40 days across various sets and an outdoor location with a combination of over 10 actors. By the time the allegations came out (in October 2018) the actors in the film including me had already started work on other films," he explained.

Ajay went on to explain that it was not possible to re-shoot the portions containing the accused by replacing him with another actor.