Vikas Bahl Masturbated On A Female Employee: Report. Now, Industry Starts Calling Queen Director Out

The four partners (Vikas Bahl, Anurag Kashyap, Madhu Mantena, Vikramaditya Motwane) have gone their separate ways and dissolved their collaboration Phantom Films. This announcement came yesterday on Twitter. There had been reports since quite some time that Vikas Bahl had been accused of sexual harassment by a female employee. And then, yesterday, Huff Post came up with a sensational story that puts Vikas really in the dock. According to HuffPost, Vikas Bahl had sexually assaulting a woman crew member during the pre-release promotional tour of their movie, Bombay Velvet. 

Bahl, the woman crew member told HuffPost on request of anonymity, insisted on dropping her to her hotel room on the early hours of  May 5, 2015 and pretended to pass out drunk on her bed, only to awaken soon after and masturbate on her. The woman was alone, vulnerable and recovering from an accident that had left her on crutches for months. She reached out to Bahl's partner Anurag Kashyap but no action was taken. And then, Bahl started torturing her, so much so that she quit the company. A combination of therapy, Buddhist practice, and support from her friends and most importantly, her boyfriend, she said, have given her confidence to eventually speak out. Kashyap has now admitted to HuffPost India he had failed the woman—three years after he first learnt of the allegations. "Whatever happened was wrong. We didn't handle it well, we failed. I cannot blame anyone but myself. But now we are determined to do better. We believe her completely. She has our undying support. What Bahl has done is horrifying. We are already on our path of course correction and will do everything in our capacity to fix it."

Masaan filmmaker Neeraj Ghaywan, Kubbra Sait, Nikkhil Advani, Hansal Mehta, Vikramaditya Motwane, Anurag Kashyap and writer Apurva Asrani have called out Vikas Bahl over the sexual harassment allegations. Read their tweets below:

Vikas Bahl has failed to speak anything on the matter, but strangely has been talking about his forthcoming venture Super 30 starring Hrithik Roshan. What a dichotomy, this man made a film called Queen starring Kangana Ranaut, on woman empowerment! Last evening, Kangana divulged shocking details of he getting too close to her. How long will this man hide? Shame!