TVF founder Arunabh Kumar accused of sexual harassment

“Since then it became routine. Right from Pitchers to Tripling, I was molested. Be it in parties where Arunabh would try to lift me or would try and fall on me pretending he is drunk. One instance was the Ola deal. The Ola team was meeting him and we were taking notes. He walks out of the meeting with some excuse and calls me for some notes. I walk up. He says its time we do a quicky. I am stunned. And I told him I will go to the police. He says ‘Police to meri pocket me hai’. I walked out deciding never to come back. Then get a call from Legal saying that I am in a breach of contract (sic),” read an extract from the blog, accusing the founder of TVF, which has a vertical called Girliyapa dedicated entirely to women-centric content.

The official response from TVF came as a comment on the blog where they have called the allegations “baseless” and termed the post “completely ludicrous and defamatory”, adding: “We will leave no stone unturned to find the author of the article and bring them to severe justice for making such false allegations.”

TVF spokesperson Aditi Singh told The Indian Express that according to their records, no employee of such description has ever worked at the company. “There are several other points in the blog which seem factually incorrect. We are preparing an elaborate response to the accusations made in the blog,” Singh said.

Kasturia took to Twitter and denied the claim.

But after the blog post went viral, a number of anonymous and identified statements accusing Kumar of molestation have emerged on the internet. In the comments section of the anonymous post that came out Sunday, one Aayushi Agarwal claimed that she had had a similar experience working at the company.

Writer-director Reema Sengupta wrote a Facebook post in support of the anonymous blog and said she was directing a web series for TVF last year, when Kumar made overtures. “As I talk, he finds some lame excuse to place his hand on my hand (which was on the table in his glass cabin). In the middle of the shoot, he touches my shoulder tattoo and tells me he finds it sexy. After every other shot, he would come over to the monitor to see how the shot looks, but at the same time graze his hand against my waist. All this in a 5-hour shoot (sic) …”, she said.