MUMBAI MIRROR (October 9, 2018)

Over 10 days after actress Tanushree Dutta emerged from a selfimposed exile to revive sexual harassment accusations against her Horn OK Pleassss co-star Nana Patekar, the #MeToo wave has taken root in the Hindi film industry.

Sexual assault allegations have also returned to haunt Queen director Vikas Bahl and his associates. Over a year after Mirror broke the story (April 2017) about the filmmaker harassing a crew member in Goa. The survivor has spoken up about the ordeal again. Following the renewed backlash against Bahl and his friends, Anurag Kashyap, Vikramaditya Motwane and Madhu Mantena, who cofounded the production house Phantom Films’ and are being pulled up for not doing anything to protect the survivor at the time, the quartet has dissolved the company.

In the wake of newer testimonies, most prominent of the lot being from Bahl’s Queen heroine Kangana Ranaut’, who revealed that she too had been subjected to the filmmaker’s predatory behaviour, a major digital platform has reportedly dropped Bahl as the director of an upcoming show. Hrithik Roshan, the lead of his directorial Super 30, released a statement urging the film’s producers to take a ‘hard stand’ against the director. “It is impossible for me to work with any person if he/she is guilty of such grave misconduct.

I am away and have access to sporadic information. I have requested the producers of ‘Super 30’ to take stock of the apparent facts and take a hard stand if need be. This is not to be hushed or brushed under the carpet. All proven offenders must be punished, and all exploited people must be empowered and given strength to speak up,” Hrithik tweeted on Monday.

On Monday, actor-filmmaker Rajat Kapoor took to Twitter to apologise for his actions after a journalist accused him of “lewd” and unprofessional behaviour while a former assistant director revealed that he had harassed her to “shoot a film in an empty apartment” 10 years ago. After another journalist revealed that Kailash Kher had kept his “hand on my thigh,” the singer was quoted as saying that he was disappointed. “Those who know me will know how much I respect humanity, especially women, even more for the ones who work in media since their work is difficult,” he said in a statement.

Meanwhile, skeletons continue to tumble out on the comedy scene after Twitter user Mahima Kukreja called out comedian and YouTuber Utsav Chakraborty for harassing several women in the last few years. Aravind Subramanian, Jeeveshu Ahluwalia and Kanan Gill have joined the list of offenders as revealed by anonymous accounts by Twitter users. The comedy collective AIB put out a statement on Monday, revealing that its founder and CEO Tanmay Bhat, who has been accused of inaction even after being apprised of Utsav’s behaviour, has “stepped away” from the comedy collective.

“We have been closely monitoring the sequence of events on social media around the allegations against AIB and against our co-founder and CEO Tanmay Bhat. We cannot overlook Tanmay’s role and in light of this he will be stepping away from his association with AIB until further notice,” read a statement from Vidhi Jotwani, AIB’s Head of Human Resources.

Gursimran Khamba, an AIB cofounder who has been accused of sexual misconduct by a former female friend, has also stepped down from his position at the company after issuing a separate statement in which he apologised for his “bad behaviour,” adding, “But I categorically deny any violation of consent”.