EXCLUSIVE: Ssara Khan takes an indirect dig at Kamya Punjabi over Pratyusha Banerjee's prayer meet

Pratyusha Banerjee is gone but the noise around her still continues.

By Rasika Deshpande

Updated on Apr 10, 2017 | 09:12 AM IST | 848.2K

Actress Pratyusha Banerjee's untimely death shattered many. Noone could believe that the actress was no more amongst us. That was the day when we couldn’t believe our ears and eyes, and it still continues to be the same upon hearing a 'late' before Pratyusha's name or seeing a flower garland upon her beautiful photo frame. It was just not a day when Pratyusha left us, but also a day when one got a reality check of how inhumane people can be just for the sake of short-lived fame. While many celebs encashed the media attention through this unfortunate happening, a few actually stood by Pratyusha's parents through thick and thin and made it a point to fight for justice.

On the eve of Pratyusha's first year death anniversary, Kamya Punjabi and Nikhat Neerusha, Pratyusha’s parent’s staunch pillar of support in the absence of their daughter, released the last project, a short film of Pratyusha that was shot when she was alive on video platform and made sure it reached out to a massive number of people, for their only intention behind it was handing over all the income earned by this movie to Pratyusha's parents. But it was disappointing to the people present at the prayer meet to see no one from the industry, especially Pratyusha’s BFF’s who loved her a lot, mark their presence on their bestie’s prayer meet.

While talking to actress Ssara Khan, Pratyusha's best friend, we asked her the reason for her absence from the prayer meet. To which she said that she wasn't in the country and was in Pakistan for shoot. "I myself landed in India a few days later after the prayer meet. That doesn't mean I did not pray for her or did not miss her."

Further expressing her irritation on people commenting on her or Pratyusha's other friend's absence at the prayer meet, Ssara said "If you have something in your heart and want to genuinely pray for someone then you don't need to invite the world for it." "You can pray for her in your heart too. You don't need to invite the media for it. You don't need to show it to the world that 'look I am doing this for her. I am praying for her etc.

Even I prayed for Pratyusha on my own without showing it to the world. The one's who do all this simply want to get into the limelight. 'Please think about me, feel good about me, I am doing it for Pratyusha and all,' isn't what it should look like. That's not right." "You know, Life goes on. People come and go. Tomorrow even if I go, people will cry for one or two days but then life will go on. People get back to normal lives. They will remember me in their prayers if I done some good deeds and all. But creating an entire issue of this scenario is just not done. I am not interested in such kind of publicity." "I met a few friends of Pratyusha who were invited but couldn't go because they were shooting and had prior important commitments. Nobody did it on purpose. Media is such an industry where I have to perform and get to work even if my grandfather died. It is not easy as it looks like. Being an actor I wish they would have understood rather than creating an issue."

How difficult has it been for her without her bestie? Ask her this and she says, "Pratyusha and I go a long way back. The amount of crazy fun we have had I can bet no-one has had, no-one has had those kind of gossips that we have had. I have missed her and still miss her even now very much. She was my best pal and it is tough to live life without her," she signed off.