More trouble for Arunabh Kumar.
On Sunday, an anonymous user by the name of Indian Fowler published a post on Medium alleging that she had been sexually harassed by TVF founder Arunabh Kumar. While TVF put out a statement strongly denying the allegations and also promising ‘severe justice’ against the person who had written the post, another individual has now come forward and backed the allegations.
Reema Sengupta, a Writer-Director and Co-Founder at CATNIP, alleged that she had also been harassed by Kumar. In a Facebook post, she accused that Kumar had touched her inappropriately during a shoot.
She wrote on Facebook:
To everyone doubting if this is true, know that this girl definitely isn't the only girl he has been a sleaze to.
I was shooting with him in the TVF office, for a web series I was directing last year. The first time we met at the recce, he asked me to send him my work, which I did out of courtesy. When we met on the day of the shoot, I asked him if he had seen the links. To this he said - why don’t you come over to my place and we can watch them together. We can also watch a movie. Which movie do you want to watch? I politely evaded the question and continued briefing him about the shoot. As I talk, he finds some lame excuse to place his hand on my hand (which was on the table in his glass cabin). In the middle of the shoot, he touches my shoulder tattoo and tells me he finds it sexy. After every other shot, he would come over to the monitor to see how the shot looks, but at the same time graze his hand against my waist. All this in a 5-hour shoot. I can only imagine what she must have gone through for 2 years!
I remember telling my producer how creeped out I was and how I couldn’t wait for the shoot to be over. He made sure I wasn’t alone with Arunabh for the rest of the shoot. I also told someone at the agency we were working with about it. In fact, this article was sent to me by a friend who knew what had happened with me, asking ‘Same guy, no?’. Do I wish I had retaliated immediately? Yes. I didn’t because the agency and the client would have both suffered. In hindsight, that was wrong and I’m sure they would’ve supported my decision. But today, I had to choose between keeping quiet and extending my support to a girl who has bravely spoken up. So I am choosing to do the right thing. TVF can release as many ‘official responses’ rubbishing these claims as they’d like. This is my truth.
Indian Fowler, whoever you are, please get in touch if you need help
Earlier, Arunabh Kumar, the CEO of The Viral Fever (TVF), a web production house based out of Mumbai, rubbished the allegations of sexual harassment that have gone viral on social media.
In a statement, a TVF spokesperson said, "The article is completely ludicrous and defamatory against TVF and its team. All the allegations made against TVF and its team in the article are categorically false, baseless and unverified. We take a lot of pride in our team and in making TVF a safe workplace that is equally comfortable for women and men. We will leave no stone unturned to find the author of the article and bring them to severe justice for making such false allegations."
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 "Reema Sengupta and Arunabh Kumar")
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