Me Too India & the toll it has taken on mighty Bollywood men

PUBLISHED DATE : 17/Oct/2018

Me Too India & the toll it has taken on mighty Bollywood men

 

Over the past few days, opening twitter in India meant reading some morbid story or the other about how women have been subject to various forms of sexual harassment. While on one hand, the stories keep piling on and names of men from every 'repute' keep coming out, on the other organizations have started taking the step forward in lieu of these allegations.
 
The Hindi film industry is setting an example for other film industries by immediately terminating work relations with the accused, until a time they clear their name up and if found guilty, disassociating permanently. Queen director Vikas Bahl was the biggest example of this scenario, wherein Bahl's partners in his production house Phantom, dissolved the company after calling him a 'sexual predator'.
 
However, despite Hrithik Roshan's statement that he'll stop working with Vikas Bahl in Super 30 if the allegations turn out to be true, producers Sajid Nadiadwala and Reliance Entertainment have decided to not fire the director from the movie and wait till he takes his first course of action in court. Sajid Nadiadwala produced other film Housefull 4 though saw its director Sajid Khan and one of the actors Nana Patekar step down, after Akshay Kumar and his wife Twinkle Khanna reiterated that proper steps be taken against these accused members.

Director Subhash Kapoor was dropped from his upcoming project Mogul by both the producers Aamir Khan and T series and Ekta Kapoor's Balaji Telefilms terminated work relations with him post the accusations against him. 
 
More recently, one of Bollywood's most prominent production houses, Yash Raj Films sacked its senior executive member Ashish Patil following a sexual assault accusation and Anirban Blah, whose agency KWAN manages celebrities like Deepika Padukone, Ranbir Kapoor, Hrithik Roshan, Rana Daggubatti and Mahesh Babu has stepped down (he had already stepped down sometime back in 2017) and resigned as a trustee from Deepika Padukone's The Live Love Laugh foundation after 4 surviors opened up to a mid-day report about Anirban's shenanigans.

Unconfirmed reports also suggest that Anirban Das Blah has fled the country to Berlin, as he and people close to him saw this coming and his twitter account is now protected.

Actor Alok Nath who has been accused of sexual assault by TV actresses Sandhya Mridul and Deepika Amin, has refused to respond to notices from Indian Film And Television Directors Association (IFTDA) and Federation Of Western India Cine Employees. He has also filed a Rs. 1 defamation case against Vinita Nanda, who accused him of rape 19 years ago.  

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