The woman employee at Phantom Films alleged that Bahl behaved inappropriately with her during a trip to Goa
Mumbai: A former employee recently levelled sexual harassment allegations against filmmaker Vikas Bahl during a trip to Goa. The woman reportedly worked at Phantom Films, which had Bahl as one of the partners alongside Anurag Kashyap, Vikramaditya Motwane and Madhu Mantena, and spoke about her experiences to HuffPost India.
According to the woman, insisted on dropping her to her hotel room on the early hours of 5 May 2015 and pretended to pass out drunk on her bed, only to awaken soon after and masturbate on her. She also said that even after reporting the incident to Anurag Kashyap, no stringent action was taken and she ended up resigning in 2017.
Kashyap, now, said in an interview, "Whatever happened was wrong. We didn't handle it well, we failed. I cannot blame anyone but myself. But now we are determined to do better. We believe her completely. She has our undying support. What Bahl has done is horrifying. We are already on our path of course correction and will do everything in our capacity to fix it."
The production house has also been dissolved since.
Phantom was a dream, a glorious one and all dreams come to an end . We did our best and we succeeded and we failed. But i know for sure we will come out of this stronger, wiser and will continue to pursue our dreams our own individual ways. We wish each other the best.
— Anurag Kashyap (@anuragkashyap72)Meanwhile, actor Kangana Ranaut also seconded the woman's claims. In a statement, Ranaut said, "Totally believe her, even though Vikas was married back in 2014 when we were filming Queen, he bragged about having casual sex with a new partner every other day. I don't judge people and their marriages but you can tell when addiction becomes a sickness."
Filmmakers Hansal Mehta and Nikkhil Advani have also come forward to support the victim.
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