Mandana Karimi has alleged that she was harassed on the sets of ‘Kora Kora’. The actress has stated that the producer of the movie, Mahendra Dhariwal and his son, harassed her and behaved in an unruly manner on the sets.
In an interview with Times of India, Mandana said that the producer forcefully entered her vanity van. She stated that he started shouting and entered even while she was changing her clothes.
She shared, “We were shooting for a song. But the moment I left the set and went to my vanity van to change, he forcefully came inside and started shouting, ‘You can’t leave. I asked you to do an extra hour and you have to listen because I am the producer and I have paid you.’ He started saying, ‘Humne paise diye hain, lekin tumko kaam nahi karna hai, paise bhi poore chahiye, blackmail karti hai.”
Narrating the incident when he entered while she was changing, Karimi said, “After my last take, I went to my vanity van and told my spot boy to not let anyone in while I was changing my clothes. I thought the door was locked, but it wasn’t. In a few seconds, the producer came inside, since I was changing, I requested him to wait outside, but he refused and continued screaming. Luckily, the stylist (Hitendra Kapopara) ran into the vanity and pulled him out before things became uglier.”
Mandana also stated that Mahendra’s son threatened her driver. “First, the producer asked me to get out of his set. And when I got into the car, the producer’s son stopped the driver from driving me home. No one said anything about all of this. The only other person who helped me was the choreographer, who lent me his car to go home. I am not the first one to go through this, but I am someone who will not take it lying down. I will not go to that set ever again. I am done with it,” she shared.
Dhariwal, on the other hand, said that Mandana started acting up. He said, “At 7 pm, she said she has to leave. I requested her that we have to complete this today and I asked if she could wait for an hour more. She said okay and went back on set. At 8 pm, she got a call and she went into her vanity van. I ran after her to stop her from leaving because we still had a few shots left. I told her I would run into a loss as I will have to shoot the next day again.”
He defended his behaviour by stating, “She wasn’t willing to stay back, and that is when I gave her an earful because she started packing up. Mandana started making videos of me screaming; I told her I am not scared. I entered the vanity van in about 10-15 seconds after she entered, and I knocked before entering. She asked me to step in. Public khadi thi bahar, and I was standing on the steps of the van. I requested for an additional 15 minutes, but I lost my cool when she started acting up.”