Vikas Bahl director of the National Award-winning film ‘Queen’ has found himself in the centre of sexual harassment allegations. A woman employee at Phantom Films has accused the director of molestation. According to reports in Mumbai Mirror, a young female co-worker had alleged that she was molested by Vikas while on a trip to Goa a few months ago. It has been reported that the lady complained to Anurag Kashyap, Vikramaditya Motwane and Madhu Mantena who jointly hold stake at Phantom along with Vikas. The matter was escalated to Reliance Entertainment with whom Phantom has a 50-50 joint venture. The company set up a committee as per the Vishakha guidelines to hear her grievance.
According to the report, Vikas Bahl, who had already stopped attending office, was formally told on March 28 to step down from his position. “The decision needed to be taken because it was getting too much,” said one of the stakeholders. “There are not one, two or three but multiple victims. I was in the middle of a film shoot when I came to know about the first incident and I had to stop my shoot and come to Mumbai - there is a young girl on whom an intoxicated Vikas forced himself while they were in Goa. Vikas has denied these allegations, and so has his partner, Madhu Mantena, who said no such action had been taken against the ‘Queen’ director. Speaking to Mirror, Vikas said, “Nothing has happened. I have heard about this particular lady you are speaking about and the Goa incident. She is not my employee. Yes, I am friends with her, we have worked together...but if she is feeling like this, I would like to apologize for it. I do feel a little victimized but I don’t know what to do about that.”
TNN
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