Vikas Bahl calls Anurag Kashyap, Vikramaditya opportunists, sends legal notice
Amidst the ongoing #MeToo movement, director Vikas Bahl, who has been accused of sexual harassment, has sent a legal notice to the Phantom co-founders Anurag Kashyap and Vikramaditya Motwane. He has called them opportunists and accused them of defaming him. Vikas has even asked for 'an unconditional apology' from both of them, and has demanded their statements against him should be withdrawn.
In the legal notice, Vikas has alleged that Anurag had bribed another Phantom employee who in turn accused the 'Queen' director of sexually harassing her in 2015. He also accused Anurag-Vikramaditya of making him a scapegoat for dissolving Phantom films. "You are neither a witness nor the alleged victim, but instead an opportunist seeking to derive benefit based on unsubstantiated information," the notice read.
Vikas also claimed that there is no authenticity to the allegations leveled against him. He stated Anurag and Vikramaditya have reacted without verifying the facts and also "exploited the media to propagate your own personal vendetta". Vikas made it a point that dissolution of Phantom Films was in talks for a while owing to creative differences between the founders.
In the notice, Vikas also pointed out the evident contradictions in Anurag's statement on the matter. Reportedly, the alleged victim had claimed that Anurag didn't show "any inclination to act on her allegations" in 2015. However, as per his recent statements, Anurag claims to be standing by the victim. He said he did whatever was expected of him as a Director of the company.
The notice further mentioned that Vikramaditya was aware of the fact that no sexual harassment incident took place. He even showed the screenshots of his conversation with the alleged victim to Anurag. But despite knowing the truth, Vikramaditya chose to issue a statement against Vikas. "Motwane, after the victim outed him went ahead and issued statements against Bahl," the notice reads.
While Anurag and Vikramaditya are yet to respond to Vikas's notice, the former has stepped down as a board member of MAMI. He tweeted about the same and wrote, "I have decided to step back from my duties as a board member from MAMI until the shadow of doubt of our alleged complicitness in silence and not doing anything about it, is cleared."
