Television personality Saisha Shinde, who was Poonam Pandey's co-contestant in the reality show Lock Upp, slammed the actress for faking her death recently and pulling off a publicity stunt, all in the name of creating awareness around cervical cancer. Saisha stated that she was disgusted by Poonam's act and even went ahead and blocked her.
On Friday, Poonam's social media handle declared that she had succumbed to cervical cancer at the age of 32. However, the actress came forth the media and clarified that she was very much alive, and all of it was to create chatter around cervical cancer and its vaccination.
Her publicity gimmick did not go down well with netizens, who slammed her and the campaign, calling it highly insensitive and tone deaf. Saisha too joined the bandwagon and lashed out at the actress for making a joke out of death.
"Totally disgusted! I called you my friend! You don't deserve to be my friend! You call this awareness? My mom has had a double mastectomy and she has battled cancer! My sister has had a kidney failure and she passed away and can never come back! My aunt died of mental illness... unlike you, they can never come back!" she wrote.
She went on to say, "Death is not a joke! Death is not a publicity stunt! It's an actual non quantifiable FACT! SHAME ON YOU @poonampandeyreal you played with our emotions! And I will never forgive you for this! NEVER!"
Saisha also shared screenshots in which she can be seen blocking Poonam on all social media platforms.
On Saturday, Poonam announced that she was alive and mentioned that though she knew she would lose a lot of friends and fans due to the publicity stunt, she went ahead and did it to create an awareness about cervical cancer that has been claiming lives of hundreds of women.
She also apologised to her fans but added that she was proud of the fact that she could make people talk about cervical cancer through her fake death news.
