UPDATE [31st March, 11:30 am]: The case against Arunabh Kumar, which was being seen as dying social media outburst, is now getting interesting and twisted by the second. Another FIR has now been lodged against TVF’s founder and CEO at the Versova police station.
The police suggest that the woman who’s filed the latest FIR was called by Arunabh for an interview at his Versova office. The woman was allegedly molested during a one-on-one interview in his personal office. The police said,
The woman was molested inside the cabin by Arunabh Kumar. She immediately left from his cabin and later never met him. We have registered FIR under section 354 of IPC.
The woman who’s filed the second FIR against Arunabh Kumar says that she was aloof to the existence of a legal procedure in such cases. When she heard about the first FIR in the news, she also decided to take action and here we’re are. The situation is now more gritty and unfathomable for everyone. The whereabouts of Arunabh are still unknown.
UPDATE [30th March, 5:30 pm]: I can’t really say about you but this definitely comes as a surprise to us. TVF’s CEO Arunabh Kumar had been summoned for questioning by Mumbai Police but he is now on the run. Yes, Arunabh is currently missing and the police authorities are unable to locate him. Talking about the same, a police official informed the media,
We are searching for him but are unable to find him.
Further, the official continued to add that the Mumbai Police is keen on arresting the founder and CEO of this digital media empire because of the gruesome charges of sexual harassment against him. It has also been added that Arunabh has been charged with a non-bailable offence and the authorities will definitely be opposing his bail plea. They’re only willing to arrest him for questioning, which will be followed by further action.
PREVIOUSLY: TVF CEO Arunabh Kumar was accused of “abuse and molestation” by a former female TVF employee via an anonymous blog post on Medium. However, due to lack of evidence and absence of an FIR, Mumbai police department was on the verge of slamming the case forever.
However, things have taken a turn now. In what will be the first serious event in this entire saga, an FIR has been lodged against Kumar on charges of sexual assault. What’s even more interesting is the fact, that the woman we are talking about is a current employee of TVF, as quoted by multiple media reports and sources. Being a present employee itself is a solid basis for a FIR and can even shed light on other ambiguous truths of the entity, still under the shadows.
The FIR against Kumar has been filed under Section 354 (Assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty). at the MIDC police station in Mumbai’s Andheri East. The FIR so filed has no links with Siddiqui’s report, the latter further confirmed to FactorDaily that the police action was not the result of his complaint, but indeed follows a fresh complaint. In addition, he said,
I am happy that whoever has come forward has done so and made it possible for this case to be investigated by the police, which in my opinion was not acting upon the previous complaint made.
In defence of the company, Nidhi Singh, an actress who currently works with TVF, further added she has worked as a collaborator on TVF and has nothing negative to say about the company. She confirmed the same via her tweet stating,
My side. pic.twitter.com/cS6tfD2dVd
— Nidhi NEETU Bisht (@EkThapaTiger) March 13, 2017
The entire incident took off on March 13th, when a former TVF employee penned an anonymous blog post on Medium, repeatedly alleging TVF CEO Kumar, of workplace sexual assault. The post went in great detail to describe what all happened, and a more detailed story on the same can be found here.
Following that, another former TVF employee Aayushi Agarwal stood up in support of the anonymous ex-employee (who claims Arunabh knows who wrote this) in the comments section of the blog post. As the heat rose, many other women came up with their own incidents including a piece of evidence against Kumar made public by the writer, director and co-founder of stylised video content startup CATNIP Reema Sengupta.
The implications could now be seriously far-reaching — both for Arunabh and TVF as a whole. An FIR against a company’s CEO, that too when the brand is popular for its extremely youth-oriented, modern content will definitely do far-reaching damages to the overall brand image. We’re closely following the story, and shall update you on the same, if there’s any new incident involved.
Stay tuned.
