Payal Ghosh to file FIR against Kashyap for sexual assault
Bollywood actor Payal Gosh will file a police complaint against filmmaker Anurag Kashyap for allegedly sexually assaulting her in the past. The First Information Report (FIR) will be lodged at the Oshiwara Police station in Mumbai today. Payal had on Saturday accused the 48-year-old director/producer of sexual harassment. Anurag, however, has denied the allegation. Here are more details on this.
Payal's lawyer on Sunday told ANI, "Payal Ghosh has decided to lodge an FIR against the accused. We will file a complaint at Oshiwara Police Station tomorrow. We are doing paperwork today. She has decided that she will lodge FIR against Anurag Kashyap (sic)."
On Saturday, Payal had put out a tweet, accusing Anurag of sexual harassment. "Anurag Kashyap has forced himself on me and extremely badly," the actor tweeted, while appealing to Prime Minister Narendra Modi for help. In a separate interview, Payal said that the alleged incident happened in 2014-2015 at the time of the making of Anurag's movie Bombay Velvet.
On Saturday night, Anurag denied the allegations and termed them "baseless" in a series of tweets. Now, in a fresh statement posted by the filmmaker, his lawyer Priyanka Khimani said the allegations are false and that they will take legal action against Payal. "It is sad that a social movement as important as #MeToo has been reduced to a mere tool for character assassination."
And here is the statement from my lawyer @PriyankaKhimani .. on my behalf .. thank You pic.twitter.com/0eXwNnK5ZI
— Anurag Kashyap (@anuragkashyap72) September 20, 2020
Payal has also said Anurag earlier claimed to have gotten intimate with some actresses who worked with him. She had named actor Richa Chadha and others. Reacting to this, Richa has shared her lawyer's statement. "Richa condemns the act of her name being unnecessarily and falsely dragged in a derogatory manner into controversies and allegations being recently raised by third parties," the statement read.
"No woman should misuse their liberties to harass other women with unsubstantiated or non-existent, false and baseless allegations. Our client has initiated appropriate legal action and shall further pursue her legal rights and remedies in law," Richa's statement further read.
Meanwhile, Anurag's two ex-wives, Aarti Bajaj and Kalki Koechlin have also come out in his support. Aarti called the allegation against Anurag "cheapest stunt," telling the filmmaker to "keep empowering women as you do." Kalki, on the other hand, said the director defended her integrity even after their divorce in 2015. "Do not let this social media circus get to you," she wrote.
Separately, actor Kangana Ranaut has supported Payal, saying she also suffered a similar ordeal at the hands of "many big heroes." The 33-year-old actor, who had a couple of altercations with Anurag in the recent past, added that Bollywood is "full of sexual predators who have fake and dummy marriages, they expect a new hot young girl to make them happy everyday."
