Vikas Bahl’s Notice To Anurag Kashyap & Vikramaditya Motwane; States Them As Opportunists

Director Vikas Bahl, is in news amidst the raging #MeToo movement. Former employee of Phantom Films accused the director for sexual assault on her. While celebrities like Kangana Ranaut and Imran Khan supported her claim, even his associates, Anurag Kashyap and Vikramaditya Motwane agreed upon the allegations. Now as per the latest reports, Vikas has lashed at both co-workers by calling them as opportunists.

As reported by Mumbai Mirror, Vikas Bahl sent legal notices to both Anurag kashyap and Vikramaditya Motwane, via e-mail. Bahl accused them of not only orchestrating the whole campaign against him, but also using the opportunity to disband Phantom Films, which was established in 2011 by Kashyap, Motwane, Bahl and producer Madhu Mantena and making him look like the person responsible for the production house’s fall and termed them as opportunists for using the allegations to defame him.

The notice, issued through Advocate Shamsher Garud of Jayakar and Partners, alleges that Kashyap bribed another employee of the production house to make similar allegations against Bahl. “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.”

The notice alleges that Kashyap and Motwane acted on hearsay to paint Bahl as the villain of the piece. “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,” the notice says.

Bahl has alleged that he, along with Kashyap, Motwane and Mantena had anyway been discussing dissolution of Phantom Films for the past few months because of creative and professional differences. “However, putting [the blame of the production house shutting down] solely on Bahl is in bad taste,” the notice says.

Notice also points out at contradictions in Anurag’s stated position as the victim herself termed his statements on social media as sudden moral enlightenment and further with the reference to the alleged victim’s statements in the media, the notice reads that when she approached him in October 2015, he did not show any inclination to act on her allegations. “However, now he has changed his stand to say that he stood by the victim and had morally and contractually complied with what was expected of him as a Director of the company.”

Notice also says that Motwane had earlier this month met Bahl and showed the latter screenshots of his conversations with alleged victim. “This was to show that no sexual harassment incident had taken place. Yet, Motwane, [after the victim outed him] went ahead and issued statements against Bahl,” the notice says.

Further the notice threatens to file defamation case against Kashyap and Motwane, if they did not withdraw the messages and apologised to Bahl.