#MeToo: Vikas Bahl sues Anurag Kashyap, Vikramaditya Motwane; calls them 'opportunists'

Bollywood’s #MeToo movement grows stronger by the day as more women come out to speak about their stories of abuse and harassment at the hands of some men in power. In a turn of events now, ‘Queen’ director Vikas Bahl who was accused of sexual harassment by at least three women and called out by industry colleagues, especially former partners at Phantom, Anurag Kashyap and Vikramaditya Motwane has sued them both. 

Vikas has issued legal notices to both Anurag and Vikramaditya separately. He seeks withdrawal of “contradictory” statements made by them both on social media regarding the victim of alleged 2015 assault.

Vikas accused Anurag and Vikramaditya of being “opportunists” for using the allegations to defame him.

In two separate notices issued by Vikas on email, he accused them of orchestrating the whole campaign against him. He also wrote that they used this opportunity to disband Phantom Films, making him look responsible for the production house’s failure. 

The notice was issued by his advocate Shamsher Garud of Jayakar and Partners that alleges that Anurag bribed another employee of the production house to make similar allegations against Vikas. The notice states: “This makes us wonder whether the alleged incident [of sexual assault] also has any authenticity, given that the alleged victim was, in fact, working as your own employee.”

It adds: “You are neither a witness nor the alleged victim, but instead an opportunist seeking to derive benefit based on unsubstantiated information. The alleged incident has not been established in any court of law and that you have exploited the media to propagate your own personal vendetta.”

Vikas states in the notice that the trio had been discussing to disband Phantom Films owing to creative and professional differences. The notice says, “However, putting [the blame of the production house shutting down] solely on Bahl is in bad taste.”

The director in its notice to both threatens to not stop at this but file civil and/or criminal defamation against Anurag and Vikramaditya if the two do not withdraw their “messages [on social media] and tender an unconditional apology to Bahl.”