Following allegations of sexual harassment against Mukesh Chhabra, Fox Star Studios has suspended his services as director of its under production project, Kizie Aur Manny .
According to a statement, the suspension stays till the Internal Complaints Committee (ICC) of M/s Mukesh Chhabra Casting Company concludes its inquiry into the allegations against Mr. Chhabra. The Hindi adaptation of The Fault In Our Stars , starring Sushant Singh Rajput and newcomer Sanjana Sanghi with music by A.R. Rahman, Kizie Aur Manny was to be the directorial debut of Bollywood’s leading casting director.
“As a responsible organization Star India takes any allegations of sexual harassment of women at workplace very seriously,” said the statement. At the time of going to press there was no response from Mr. Chhabra to The Hindu’s query on Fox Star Studios’ decision.
Last week, in a Mid-Day report, two aspiring actresses had accused Mr. Chhabra of sexual harassment during auditions. In a phone conversation with one of the survivors, he is alleged to have said: “You’ll have to compromise, get physical with people in power.” Refuting allegations, he had released a statement on Twitter on October 12 saying, “It is very unfortunate that years of hard work and building is been muzzled with a series of unsubstantiated wild anonymous allegations.”
Meanwhile, according to a PTI report, actor Sushant Singh Rajput has denied sexual misconduct allegations levelled against him. In the report, which started doing the rounds on social media on Thursday, the actor was accused of harassing his Kizie Aur Manny co-star Sanjana Sanghi.
While Ms. Sanghi, who will be making her big screen acting debut with the film, has not yet spoken on the matter, Mr. Rajput shared his side of the story with screenshots of a conversation between him and Ms. Sanghi. In the chat, the actors are sharing their experience of working with each other and “non-conducive conditions” on the film’s set. “I feel sad to reveal personal information but it seems that there is no other way to state what was, in the midst of this curated and well timed smear campaign. From the first till the last day of the shoot, this is what happened on the set with Sanjana,” he tweeted.
According to the report, Ms. Sanghi had informed director Mukesh Chhabra about Mr. Rajput’s alleged behaviour, during the film’s shoot in July, but he “laughed off the matter”.
After the allegation, many other reports started speculating that Mr. Rajput’s verification badge appeared to have been revoked by Twitter. The actor, however, clarified that his verification has been missing since September 5. “And for all those deliberately using the missing of Twitter ‘blue tick’ to substantiate their false claims, allow me to tell you that it is not there since 5th of September. Get your facts checked before jumping to conclusions that you so eagerly want to,” he wrote.
In August, a report in DNA had claimed that the shooting for Kizie Aur Manny was stalled because Mr. Rajput made Ms. Sanghi “uncomfortable” on the sets. Mr. Chhabra supported Mr. Rajput saying “no such incident happened on the sets”. He tweeted, “I totally stand by @itsSSR - no such incident happened on the sets and let’s not have a Twitter trial and make an innocent person suffer for somebody else’s ulterior motives. I had clarified this on twitter long back and I still maintain it.”
