Saqib Saleem on Payal Ghosh’s statement on Huma Qureshi: ‘My sister is my life, it hurts when someone speaks ill of her’

Actor Saqib Saleem has reacted to Payal Ghosh’s recent statement against his sister, actor Huma Qureshi. Saqib has said that he feels helpless in the face of all the accusations being made.

Payal had recently alleged that filmmaker Anurag Kashyap sexually harassed her seven years ago. She said the filmmaker told her that other actors such as Richa Chadha and Huma Qureshi had also got work from him in return of sexual favours. Richa and Huma reacted strongly to her statement. While Richa sent a legal notice to Payal, Huma wrote a post on Twitter about the ‘baseless conjecture’.

Speaking to Bollywood Hungama, Saqib said he feels bad when someone speaks ill about his sister. “Does it feel bad when someone says wrong things about your sister? 100%. My sister is my life, my pride. If someone said anything about her, it will feel very bad,” he said. Saqib said that doesn’t feel powerful as an actor but is fearful that ‘anyone can say anything’ about someone. “But what can I do? As a brother I am saying, what can I do? Who should I fight? What should I say? Now I have told myself I just don’t want to be a part of this outside world. Twitter and all are irrelevant. If can keep my sister, my parents happy in real life, I am happy,” he added.

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In her statement, Huma had said that she had so far avoided commenting on the issue as she didn’t want to get into social media fights and media trials. “I feel really angry at being dragged into this mess. I feel angry not just for myself but also every woman whose years of hard work and struggle gets reduced to such baseless conjecture and allegations in their workplace. Please let’s refrain from this narrative,” the actor said in the statement. Calling Anurag Kashyap a “dear friend” and an “extremely talented” director,Huma said the duo last worked together in 2012-2013. “In my personal experience and to my knowledge he has neither misbehaved with me or anyone else. However, anyone who claims to be abused must report it to the authorities, the police and the judiciary.”

Dismissing the allegations on Sunday, Anurag had called Payal’s claim an attempt to “silence” him for his outspoken views. Payal filed an FIR against him on Tuesday night.

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