Gayatri Sai, who was introduced as an actor in Mani Ratnam’s National Award-winning film Anjali (1990), has levelled accusations of sexual misconduct against Prakash M Swamy, a senior journalist from Chennai. The 42-year-old actor went live from her Facebook profile, detailing the kind of harassment she was subjected to by Prakash Swamy over the past two years.
In the eight-minute video posted on September 27, Gayatri, who is currently in Chennai, shared that she has lodged a complaint with the police and also posted a photo of the CSR on her profile.
Gayatri, who was once Femina Miss Chennai Runner-up, had moved to Hong Kong after her wedding to MR Sainath, a prominent banker, in 1999. A single mother of two, Gayatri alleged that Prakash had sent her dirty WhatsApp messages and also physically abused her on the pretext of helping with her son’s passport. “I had to physically throw him out,” she recounted in the video.
She also stated that Prakash began threatening her, saying that he’d expose her to the world as her husband’s killer. “He started threatening saying I killed my husband, who actually died of a massive heart attack,” she said.
In a statement to IB Times via text message Prakash said, “All I can say is that this is an attempt to thwart the media person from doing his job and I shall come out with my investigative report soon to expose the culprit whoever it may be. In this connection a Tamil weekly recently wrote that she may have killed her husband in Hong Kong and ran away to Chennai with insurance claims worth ten crore. I strongly deny all her allegations as frustrated and malicious outbursts.”
Gayatri alleged that the police, too, were not helpful. “I then went to the police and lodged a complaint and went and met the JC and sent me to the All Women’s Station and told the police to file an FIR. It was not filed, they gave me a CSR. I was running around asking to take my complaint seriously,” she stated. (sic)
Gayatri was then asked to file a complaint with Commissioner since it was a cyber crime. She went on to add that before she could do anything, Prakash had lodged a cyber crime complaint against her and a few other women. Vishwadarshini, who was also named in the complaint by Prakash, said that the complaint that she tried to lodge in July this year (before Prakash's complaint) was not taken seriously by the police. "They didn't take my complaint nor did they give me a CSR," she said to TNM.
The women were then called by the cyber crime department and their profiles were checked. “They found that there was nothing against him. It was all very general. So they said I can go,” said Gayatri in her live video.
Gayatri went on to add that Prakash Swamy tried to get in touch with her to “sort it out”. Several others also had messaged her to resolve the issue. “My case still lies in the police station, not taken. I tried to go to court. My hearing never came up,” she said in the video.
Gayatri’s live video has gone viral since. She also has been posting audio recordings of Prakash’s conversations with others on her Facebook page. In one of his posts, before deleting his account, he had posted that “a new version of Sri Reddy was on the prowl in the city.”
Prakash's statement: