A day after a blog post was published on Medium.com alleging that the head of 'The Viral Fever' (TVF), Arunabh Kumar, had sexually abused an employee, news website The Quint has reported more such allegations. Meanwhile, several employees of TVF have spoken in defence of the company.
The Quint quotes a former freelancer with TVF, a college batchmate of TVF head, and his neighbour as saying that he sexually harrassed them.
The response from TVF to the allegations in the blog post created a furore online. In its official statement, TVF said, “We will leave no stone unturned to find the author of the article and bring them to serve justice for making such false allegations.”
A few TVF employees rubbished the claims made by the author of the blog.
“I have felt that TVF is one of the best places for women to work. I have only been treated with respect and dignity at TVF generally and by Arunabh in particular,” Nidhi Bisht wrote on a Facebook post. She claimed that she has never heard of the woman employee in her five years of working at the organisation.
Another TVF actor Biswapati Sarkar, popularly known for imitating Arnab Goswami, denied the claim in a series of tweets. Mr. Sarkar wrote in one of his posts, “I'm proud to be a part of TVF team. And I can vouch for our work culture any day.”
However, many have come forward criticising TVF team for refusing to probe the allegations.
Filmmaker Hansala Mehta wrote, “Harassment at the workplace must be denounced. Whether it is sexual, mental or the result of a person's perceived power over the other.”
Popular comedian Aditi Mittal openly criticised the industry people for not speaking about the incident.
“Silence from the comedy community is deafening. Everyone still 'texting contacts'/'verifying facts' in spite of hearing stories about it for years?” she tweeted.
AIB team members Rohan and Tanmay Bhatt also took to Twitter, suggesting the organisation to probe the matter.