AIB's Gursimran Khamba Issues An Apology On His Ouster After Sexual Harassment Allegations

Just this afternoon, AIB issued a statement saying that AIB's co-founder Tanmay Bhat was asked to step down from his post. Also, Gursimran Khamba was sent on a temporary leave. Now, Gursimran has come out and issued an apology. Here's what he has to say:

"I am aware of the person who's stated the incident... in 2015 we had hooked up consensually multiple times. But I categorically deny the incident mentioned in October and December. I was not forceful. It is true that I developed feelings for her while she was dating someone else. During that time given our friendship and history I felt rejected and was angry and did not behave appropriately at all. It had become a toxic relationship and I'd like to apologise unconditionally for it like I had done in the past. That behaviour was extremely uncalled for. She rightly stopped talking to me. After a few months, she reached out to me and we tried being friends again,however I was already in a relationship with my wife-and she was uncomfortable with our past history because of which I stopped talking to her. I'm sorry for my bad behaviour and all he hurt it caused her but I categorically deny any violation of consent."

 

The HR team of AIB released a statement which read as follows:

"We have been closely monitoring the sequence of events on social media around the allegations against AIB and also our Co-founder and CEO, Tanmay Bhat. We cannot overlook Tanmay’s role and in light of this, he will be stepping away from his association with AIB until further notice. This implies that Tanmay will not be involved in the day to day functioning of AIB or in any other manner.

We have also just been appraised of the allegations against Gursimran Khamba on social media. At this point in time, these allegations pertain to a private matter and he has released a statement on his own about the same. However, as an organisation, we believe that it would be prudent to place Gursimran Khamba on a temporary leave of absence until we have more clarity on the matter.

We understand that disconcert of any kind adversely affects the work culture and creates an unsafe space for our employees. Nobody should have to work in an environment such as that and we hope to enable measures to establish our commitment to creating a gender sensitive workspace. We are in the process of consulting various experts to ensure that our work culture incorporates sensitivity, inclusivity, respect and fairness.

As mentioned, at this time, both of our senior partners are immediately stepping away from all business at AIB. Truthfully, we do not know what this means for the future of AIB or whether there is one. In the interim, Ashish Shakya, Rohan Joshi and other senior team members will work towards being able to answer that question over the next several months.”