On the 12th of April 2024, YouTube channel ‘Alternate Media’ host Gayatri interviewed journalist Kumar Srikant. The video was about a host of issues which the guest, Kumar Srikant was addressing. During the interview, several allegations against YouTuber Ajit Anjum were made by the journalist being interviewed.
Srikant claimed that throughout his career, Ajit Anjum had a history of sexually harassing female anchors, while he used to be an anchor in mainstream media channels like AajTak, TV9 and News24. These allegations have been strongly refuted by Ajit Anjum.
In the video, Srikant claims that when Ajit Anjum was working at News24, he would employ women anchors based on their figure and looks, not their work. While making these claims about Ajit Anjum, Srikant also mentions Vinod Kapri and says that he does ‘Ilu Ilu in parking lots’ and despite him sending legal notices to those who had made these claims, this story could not be suppressed. He says that the story of Vinod Kapri is the story for another day.
Talking about Ajit Anjum, he says that his friends told him that other than the sexual harassment of female anchors, Anjum would also take bribes to allow other anchors and journalists to hold the News24 mic while reporting. These bribes of 20,000-40,000 were taken by Anjum from news stringers, Srikant claims his friend told him. He further claims that it was because of this ‘corruption’ that he was fired by Rajiv Shukla from News24.
Srikant claims that after joining India TV, Ajit Anjum continues his campaign of sexual harassment of anchors. He would abuse female anchors and ask them to ‘wear tight clothes’. He claims that these orders were given to a big female anchor who was married and had children too. Further, Srikant claims that Anjum had also given threats to fire this anchor.
The allegations by Srikant don’t stop here. He also claimed in the interview that Ajit Anjum would sit and consume alcohol in his cabin and ask female interns to get him soda from the office pantry. He would then, while drinking, tell the interns how he would turn them into stars. Srikant claims that even after joining TV9 Bharatvarsh, Ajit Anjum indulged in corruption.
In response to these allegations made by Kumar Srikant, Ajit Anjum published a video where he strongly denied these allegations. In his video, he also claimed that there are female anchors who would testify on his behalf to refute allegations that he indulged in sexual harassment of female anchors in the channels where he worked before turning into a YouTuber.
Ajit Anjum has sent a defamation notice to the anchor of the YouTube channel who interviewed journalist Kumar Srikant who made these allegations. It is pertinent to note that throughout the video, anchor Gayatri had not made any allegations against Ajit Anjum, but was interviewing the journalist who made these allegations.
Ajit Anjum also said that the reason why he is sending the legal notice and could further go to court for defamation is because he fears that similar videos could be made against his friend Vinod Kapri, Abhisar Sharma, and other YouTubers.
Interestingly, in the video response by Ajit Anjum where he refutes the allegations made by Kumar Srikant, he brings up another claim made by Kumar Srikant, which he says forms the basis of his defamation notice against Gayatri. He says that in the video, Srikant claims that there is a pending case against Anjum in Ghaziabad. The case pertains to the case of defaming a doctor. Anjum says that this is false and there is no case pending against him in Ghaziabad. While Anjum is right in saying that he is not an accused in the Ghaziabad case, which is actually against Rajdeep Sardesai and others for running a fake sting operation in 2006, the anchor also mentions the POCSO case against Ajit Anjum, which he craftily leaves out of his response video.
The response video by Ajit Anjum can be viewed here.
There are several other allegations made in the interview by Srikant which were denied by Ajit Anjum. Some of the other allegations pertain to him owning several apartments in Noida, owning land in Bhagalpur etc, owning a Mercedes Sadan etc. Ajit Anjum has pointed out that several of the allegations made by Srikant are patently untrue – for example – Srikant claims that Anjum’s name used to be Jha, but he changed his name to Anjum because of “Sarva Dharm” considerations. These allegations, Ajit Anjum says, are not true. He also mentions in his video that Srikant and Gayatri would have to prove these allegations in court.
