Anurag Kashyap, who co-founded Phantom films with Vikas Bahl, Madhu Mantena and Vikramaditya Motwane, has shared a statement addressing the sexual harassment allegations against Bahl. On 7 October, the director of Manmarzziyaan took to Twitter with a two-page statement on the matter.
“My statement in light of the recent HuffPost article and breaking up of Phantom. There are two pages,” his tweet read.
My statement in light of the recent HuffPost article and breaking up of Phantom . There are two pages.. pic.twitter.com/WCAsaj6uFR
— Anurag Kashyap (@anuragkashyap72) October 7, 2018
“While at Phantom, I did everything I could, within what I was told by my partner and his lawyers. For legal and financial decisions, I was fully dependent on my partner and his team. They took care of those things so I could focus on what I did better, creatives. His word and his team’s word on any matter used to be the final word for us,” Kashyap wrote in his statement.\
The director also revealed that he was responsible for bringing Bahl’s deeds into the light.
“While others in the industry were only rumour-mongering, it was me who was responsible for bringing out Vikas’ name publicly by speaking with Mumbai Mirror on an anonymous basis and the publication eventually carried a front-page article about the incident. Nothing about it was under wraps. It’s been out there for more than a year,” the statement read.
Kashyap went on to say that the Hindi film industry is “extremely ill-equipped” when it comes to sexual harassment.
“This industry is extremely ill-equipped to handle matters such as sexual harassment, copyright, censorship and all the things we put ourselves in dock with. A large part of the reason for this is that there is clearly lack of correct advice and awareness of legal remedies,” he wrote.
The ace filmmaker concluded by apologising to the victim and promised that no such incident would happen again on his work premises.
Earlier, Huffington Post published an article where a woman accused Vikas Bahl of sexual harassment.
Read more: Tanushree Dutta files sexual harassment complaint against Nana Patekar
The report said that while many people, including Anurag Kashyap, were aware of the incident for a long time, they did not do enough.
Kashyap, Madhu Mantena, Vikramaditya Motwane and Vikas were co-founders of Phantom Films, till it was dissolved on Saturday.
According to the Huffington Post, the dissolution of Phantom Films could reportedly be attributed to the allegations against Vikas as he is the co-owner.