Friday, March 18 2005 16:58 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Mumbai: In a strong show of solidarity, the film fraternity today (March 18, 2005) rallied behind Aman Verma, who was caught on camera in a sting operation by a private TV channel, dubbing the incident as a form of "character assassination" and "disgusting transgression into the privacy of an individual".

Actors and filmmakers, including Salman Khan, Arbaz Khan, actor-turned-MP Govinda, producer Ravi Chopra, directors Raj Kanwar, David Dhawan, Sunil Darshan converged at Mehboob Studio at suburban Bandra to express their support with all those who have been caught on tape.

Addressing the media, Govinda appealed to the people that they should not "fall for such tricks" and said the channel was indulging in "character assassination".

"The whole thing was a conspiracy to malign the image of the film fraternity", he said, adding it was a "well laid out trap against some of them".

"Television channels possess a lot of power and should not misuse them", the actor said.

Referring to the incident in which Shakti Kapoor was caught talking about casting couch in Bollywood, Govinda said, "Shakti was drunk but the channel was not. They could have held back the names of the 'daughters of the industry' from being used. They could have censored the names and stop their reputation from being maligned".

"Only those portions were aired that were in favour of the channel", he alleged.