A former employee of online entertainment channel The Viral Fever (TVF) has alleged that the CEO and Founder of the company Arunabh Kumar molested her several times during her two-year stint at the firm. In an anonymous blog titled ‘The Indian Uber – That is TVF’, the woman who goes by the name ‘Indian Fowler’ has detailed the several alleged instances of molestation by the executive.
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Arunabh has labeled allegations of sexual harassment against him as “fake.”
Speaking to the Mumbai Mirror on Monday evening, Kumar said he would request the woman making these allegations against him to either report the matter to the police or to the HR team at TVF where she allegedly worked.
The woman in her blog says she first met the TVF boss at a Mumbai cafe in 2014. Arunabh Kumar hired the then-22-year-old Delhi University graduate to his firm who also came from the same city in Bihar as him. “He came from the same city. Muzaffarpur. So we moved from ‘main‘ to ‘hum’. The typical way Bihari’s speak. “humko bambai me bahut akelapan mahsoos hota hai (I feel very lonely in Mumbai)”, she writes.
The woman in her post alleges that the first instance of abuse happened after just 21 days of working with the company. “I was getting where he was leading the discussion to. I avoided an interaction. I said ‘Arunabh, aap bade bhai hain. Meri tabiyat thodi theek nahi hai. Kya karna hai bataiye. Hum karke ghar jaayenge (Arunabh, you are like an elder brother. I am not feeling well. Tell me the work. I will finish it and leave)’. He suddenly holds my hand. Says ‘Madam, thoda role play karein (Madam, do some role play)’. I was stunned”, she writes.
“Since then it became routine. Right from Pitchers to Tripling, I was molested. Be it in parties where Arunabh would try to lift me or would try and fall on me pretending he is drunk”, she adds.
The woman alleges that even a threat of a police complaint didn’t stop the executive. “And I told him I will go to the police. He says ‘police to meri pocket me hai (Police is in my pocket)’, she claims. She allegedly told her bosses about the molestation but instead of taking action, they reportedly told her to ‘walk out’. Some even said ‘hota hai (it happens)’, she claimed.
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Describing the entire Medium post as slanderous, Kumar says: “I unconditionally and unequivocally deny all these allegations. Social media has already declared me an offender, but I am ready to address all the allegations against me. I am open to receiving a police complaint so that I can respond legally as well.TVF is bigger than me and if there is a remote chance that I have done any wrong, let me be persecuted.” But the Medium post is just one of the troubles that Arunabh Kumar now faces. Two more women have since made allegations of having suffered sexual harassment at TVF, one of them by Kumar, who is the largest stake holder at TVF valued at Rs 270 crore.
In an open letter on facebook on Monday, filmmaker Reema Sengupta has alleged that Arunabh repeatedly touched her inappropriately during a five-hour shoot for TVF. “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,” she wrote in the post. While he accepts that Sengupta had filmed a promo for his company, he denies he misbehaved with her.”The kind of insinuations the FB post makes are untrue. I am a heterosexual, single man and when I find a woman sexy, I tell her she’s sexy. I compliment women. Is that wrong? Having said that, I am very particular about my behavior – I will approach a woman, but never force myself,” he says.
Another ex-employee of TVF, Aayushi Aggarwal, in an online post alleged she felt exploited at TVF and left the job “under very bad circumstances.”Referring to the post on Medium, Aggarwal wrote: “I hope things have worked out for you. It (TVF) is indeed no place for a woman. I would never recommend anybody to work there.” In February, 2016, when Tiger Global Management LLC invested $10 million (Rs 65.6 crore) in TVF, picking up a significant minority stake in the firm, according to filings made by the company with the registrar of companies (RoC), there were 50 female employees at TVF. Today, out of 200 employees at TVF, 80 are women.
While accepting that Aggarwal did complain of harassment during her employment with TVF, Kumar says that a committee was appointed to look in her complaints and a colleague of hers was found guilty of misconduct and asked to leave. “The entire process was handled as it would be at any other corporate office,” he told this newspaper.
