Oct. 5: "I have been dragged into a dirty perverse mess without a choice in the matter. This is something that is not of my making."

On Thursday, Hrithik Roshan broke his silence to hit back at Kangana Ranaut in an open letter that dismissed her allegations of a seven-year relationship between the two and reiterated his claim that he had never met her in a personal capacity.

The open letter, which Hrithik uploaded on his social media accounts (Facebook and Twitter), came in the wake of Kangana's explosive media interviews over the last one month, in the run-up to the release of her film Simran.

Hrithik's letter, running into 700-plus words and describing the matter as "dirty", "perverse" and "one-sided", was carefully worded. The star of films like Dhoom:2 and Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara said he had maintained his silence all along, but had now decided to hit back. "Just like a nagging health issue sometimes ignored can turn malignant, this situation for me has unfortunately turned malignant," wrote Hrithik.

Referring to Kangana, his co-star in films like Kites and Krrish 3, as just "the lady in question", the father of two said that he had "never met her one-on-one in my entire life" and questioned how an alleged "seven-year long, passionate affair between two high profile celebrities had left no trail behind".

The letter, which caused quite a stir on social media and reportedly in Bollywood circles, dismissed Kangana's claim that Hrithik had proposed to her in Paris in January 2014, with the actor saying that his passport details show he didn't travel out of the country during that period. Hrithik also said that a picture of him "hugging" Kangana that the Queen actress has furnished as "proof" of their relationship in the media was photoshopped and that his friends and ex-wife Sussanne Khan had already "exposed" that the picture was a fake.

"Please understand, I am not fighting against an allegation of an affair. Or being childish trying to uphold a 'good guy' image. I am very aware of my faults, I am human. I am in fact protecting myself from something far more serious, sensitive and destructive than that," wrote Hrithik, saying that people "were comfortable with a lie" because it didn't threaten their model of the world "where a girl is a victim and the man the aggressor".

He also stressed that the matter shouldn't be dismissed as a lovers' spat and that it was "time I defend the truth".

The backstory

Today, Hrithik's open letter came in the wake of news reports that the star and his father, actor-director Rakesh Roshan, were filing a fresh police report against Kangana after the 30-year-old three-time National Award winner had hit out at the 43-year-old star over the last month, reiterating the explosive claim she first made in March 2016: that the two had a hush-hush relationship over two years, when Hrithik was still married to Sussanne, that he called off the affair unceremoniously after "threatening" her not to disclose it in public and also accused him of violation of privacy and intimidation.

Kangana, on a promotional spree for her film Simran that has since then flopped, reopened the can of worms, accusing Hrithik of hushing up the case and of not cooperating with the cyber crime department when it came to handing over his phone and laptop so that it could be proved that there was an exchange of personal emails between the two.

"I will not allow someone to paint me as a psychotic fool. He might have started this story, but I am going to end it," Kangana had raged last month in an interview to t2, after Hrithik claimed that she had "stalked" him and sent him "absurd mails" and insinuated that she suffers from Asperger's Syndrome that "makes her imagine things".

Kangana had also demanded an apology from not only Hrithik, but also Rakesh for "burying the outcome" of the case.

Today, Hrithik's open letter said: "There are 3,000 one sided mails which either I have sent to myself or the woman in question has sent to me. The Cyber-Crime Dept. can prove or disprove either story, in just a few days. Towards that purpose, I have surrendered all my devices including laptops / phones etc which are still lying with the cyber cell, but the other party has refused to do so. The investigation hasn't been closed."

The bigger story

The powwow that's shaken Bollywood over the last year-and-a-half and has all the makings of a potboiler was spurred by a March 2016 interview by Kangana in which she referred to Hrithik as a "silly ex", but didn't name him.

He lost his cool and demanded a public apology. A war of words erupted between the two, with a flurry of legal notices being sent to each other.

Hrithik asserted that Kangana was interacting with an impostor posing to be him, even as she claimed that the two had exchanged emails of a personal nature over seven years. The case, a rare kiss-and-yell showdown in Bollywood between two leading stars, was taken over by the cyber crime cell, but nothing has been proved conclusively yet.

Today, Hrithik's open letter prompted Kangana's sister Rangoli Chandel to lash out at him on Twitter. Rangoli, who also acts as Kangana's business manager, accused Hrithik of launching a "malicious" PR campaign and employing "brainless trolls" and also released the snapshot of a personal email allegedly exchanged between the two stars.