Deepika Padukone comes out in support of Shweta Basu Prasad

When National Award winning child actress Shweta Basu Prasad’s involvement in a prostitution racket was ’exposed’ in a raid in Hyderabad and a media scandal ensued, not many Bollywood celebs were vocal about their support to the actress who had fallen on hard times. As far as Bollywood’s lead actors are concerned, most of them have not even commented on the issue. For instance in a recent press conference, Rani Mukerji was asked about actress Shweta Basu Prasad’s involvement in a prostitution ring, but Mukerji, who was last seen saving a bunch of girls from a prostitution racket onscreen in her film Mardani, refused to comment. But now Finding Fanny’s lead star Deepika Padukone has come out in support of Shweta. When a media person asked her opinion about Shweta Basu Prasad’s situation, Padukone replied, “Let me put it this way – if that was the only thing she could do to support herself and family and it was the only way she could make money, there’s nothing wrong with that,” according to a report on IndiaTimes. [caption id=“attachment_1497631” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Deepika Padukone in this file photo. Courtesy: ibn live[/caption] She further added,“Why are we making this a scandal..why don’t we step forward and help her?…I don’t think it should we look down on her for it but instead get together and support her.” So far Shweta has only found support from her former colleague Sakshi Tanwar, producer Hansal Mehta and Nagesh Kukunoor. Kukunoor had tweeted about Prasad, who acted in Iqbal a film he directed, saying that people shouldn’t judge her.

Sakshi Tanwar even talked to Prasad’s mother and wrote an open letter to her onscreen daughter questioning the way Basu was being hounded by the media. Tanwar had noted in her letter, “We, the people, are so eager to pass judgments and share opinions about her on social media, but none of us have walked the hard yards in her shoes… I don’t know her reasons and problems, and I don’t know any solutions either… All I know is that she is kept in a remand home and that she has apparently given a statement accepting it. At least she has been brave enough to accept it (as per the reports).”   As far as the Prasad’s case is concerned, while mainstream media had been quick to name the actress, the businessman who were involved have escaped the public glare. As Firstpost editor Deepanjana Pal had noted in her piece  that the media had chosen to spill out salacious details, while ignoring the fact “that the businessmen who were paying Balu for Prasad’s company are as complicit as the pimp and the ‘prostitute’.” She had added that, “Even though Shweta is the victim in this racket and arrested alongside her were businessmen whose names would probably make for bigger headlines than Prasad’s,” everyone from police to the media is acting “as though Prasad was the only one in the hotel room.”