And Now, Odia Painter Jatin Das In The #MeToo Dock

Bhubaneswar: Odia painter Jatin Das is the latest celebrity to be enveloped in the #MeToo movement that began in India with Tanushree Dutta accusing Nana Patekar of misconduct.

The famous painter, and father of actor Nandita Das, has been accused of sexual assault by his former assistant, Nisha Bora.

In a detailed Twitter post, Nisha Bora has explained about how she met Jatin Das through her family at an event at the India International Centre in 2004. The acclaimed painter approached her to assist him in his work.

Following this, she met him at his studio, where he tried groping her and kissing her forcefully.

She wrote, “I visited Jatin in his studio, in Delhi’s Khirki Village. I don’t recall the time of the day but it was well within daylight hours. He poured some whiskey for himself and offered me too, but I refused. The next thing I knew, he attempted to grab me. I wriggled out of his embrace, flustered. Then he did it again. This time, he managed a clumsy kiss on my lips. I recall the feeling of his beard on my skin. I pushed him and moved away from him. At that moment, he said, “Come on, it would be nice” or something like that. What I recall clearly was his disbelief that I was pushing him back.”

She also said that after this incident, actor Nandita Das had called her to help him find a young assistant like her. “At that time, I recall that phone call felt like a knife being twisted in my gut, because I had so much admiration for her and it had all become so incredibly filthy at that moment,” she added.