/> The Khatta Meetha debutante Trisha Krishnan who will next be seen in Hindi with Pratik Babbar has become embroiled in a drug scandal.

A report on a Telugu channel claims Trisha's name features in the list of clients of a Nigerian drug dealer. All because she has a very close friend of African origin, the dress designer Sidney Sladen!

Trisha is not taking it lying down.

Fuming from Chennai she says, "It's very strange. I was shooting in Kodaikanal when this Telugu news channel put this news out. And they put a still of me and this very dear friend of mine who's Afro-American. They assumed that this fashion-designer friend of mine from Chennai was some drug peddler from Nigera."

And Trisha is not amused. "I was angry. This is not just a harmless rumour. The first thing I did was to get my lawyer to issue statements to all the tv channels.

I've taken legal action against the channel which put this out. There is not an element of truth in it.It's strange where this story came from. I haven't been to Hyderabad for a year now. I was told this peddler knows my number. But come on, everyone knows my number."

Trisha thinks this an attempt to malign her in the Telugu film industry. 'The only problem is, you can't pinpoint such a thing to any one source. But yes, it seems to have been done to tarnish my image. Luckily I've got a lot of support in Hyderabad even from the authorities."