Actor Vijay Raaz, who was arrested for allegedly molesting a woman on the sets of his film Sherni in Madhya Pradesh, has now returned to Mumbai. A report in Mid-Day revealed that the actor did not complete the shoot of the film and came back to Mumbai on Wednesday.
On Tuesday morning, the actor was arrested by the Gondia police in the molestation case. He was granted bail the same evening after which he did not even return to his hotel and directly left for Mumbai. The daily mentioned a source close to the film revealing that the production house, Abundantia Entertainment, has got a zero-tolerance policy against workplace harassment and that was the reason Vijay had to move out of the sets immediately even though he had two scenes left to be done.
Both the director Amit Masurkar and producer Vikram Malhotra further set up an Internal Complaints Committee (ICC) to probe the matter. The rest of the team is still in Balaghat to complete the shooting of the Vidya Balan-led film by the end of this week.
The daily quoted the source as saying, “Vijay left for Mumbai on Tuesday after he was granted bail. He didn’t even return to the hotel where he had been put up. The production head informed the crew on Wednesday that Vijay won’t be resuming work. The makers will decide on the punitive action against Vijay once the ICC ruling is out. For now, they have their eyes set on completing the shoot by the weekend.”
Earlier, the daily mentioned an eyewitness from the sets explaining how Vijay allegedly ‘yanked’ the arm of the complainant to get her attention and that irked her badly and she became inconsolable. Another eyewitness alleged that this was the third time that Vijay had misbehaved with her and she felt harassed. The actor reportedly apologised to the complainant. However, she was encouraged by the makers to go ahead and file a complaint with the production house and do what she feels is right for her.
Neither Vijay nor the makers of Sherni have spoken about the incident yet.