Bollywood director Vikas Bahl, who has been accused of being a sexual predator by one of the former employees, has issued a legal notice to his former partners of the Phantom Films – Anurag Kashyap and Vikramaditya Motwane and has also called them as “opportunists” for using the allegations to defame him. In the notice, Bahl has asked for an unconditional apology and to withdraw messages from social media.
In the legal notice sent to Kashyap and Motwane on Tuesday via email, Bahl has accused them of not only orchestrating the whole campaign against him ahead of the release of his new film Super 30 starring Hrithik Roshan but also to shut down the Phantom Films and also making him look like a fall guy responsible for its failure. The notice says the tweets and the Huffington post interview has been made by his partners has been done with a sole intent of professional jealousy and to defame Vikas Bahl.
“Our client states that you are neither a witness nor an alleged victim, but instead an opportunist seeking to derive benefit based on unsubstantiated information”, said the notice.
Bahl’s lawyers have also accused Kashyap of fixing another employee at Phantom Films to put similar allegations on Bahl. “This makes us wonder whether the alleged incident of sexual assault also has any authenticity, given that the alleged victim was, in fact, working as your own employee,” Bahl’s lawyer said in the notice.
Vikas Bahl, the partner of controversial director Anurag Kashyap’s Phantom Films, was called out by a woman claiming to be an employee of their movie venture. The lady had claimed that Vikas Bahl had tried to involve her in a forceful sexual encounter during movie promotions. She has accused Bahl of trying to undress her and violated her by putting his hands inside her dress. However, she claimed that Vikas Bahl got agitated for her resistance and ended up masturbating on her.
She further accused Kashyap of being complicit in it as he knew of the incident but still kept quiet. Shockingly, none of his partners reacted to this incidents initially, as they normally do. Anurag Kashyap finally issued a statement condemning the behaviour of Vikas Bahl. However, numerous questions were raised on the seriousness of Kashyap’s condemnation as he had chosen to remain silent despite knowing the details of the incident since 2015.
The #MeToo movement in the country has turned out to be the biggest revelation of the year, as it has consumed the well-known names in the media, cinema, grappling stand-up comedy industry. Some brave women stood up and disclosed some of the heinous crimes perpetrated on them by some self-proclaimed ‘woke feminists’. Among the accused are the AIB, Writer Varun Grover, Director Vikas Bahl, Rajat Kapoor, Alok Nath, The Wire founding editor Sidharth Bhatia, Prashant Jha and others.
