After The Viral Fever (TVF) outright rubbished allegations of sexual harassment made against its founder and CEO Arunabh Kumar, there has been increased pressure on fellow members from the comedy fraternity to speak up on the issue.
Following the publishing of the article on Medium.com that accused Arunabh of sexual harassment, multiple women have also come forward with similar allegations and as such, TVF’s combative response to the allegations, and the silence of comedians on the issue has concerned many.
Echoing the sentiment, famous comedian Aditi Mittal in a series of tweets said that the silence from the comedy community on the issue is ‘deafening’. Questioning her peers, she said:
Team AIB Reacts
Reacting to the call demanding the community to speak up, All India Bakchod’s Tanmay Bhat expressed his disappointment at the news and called for “a fair investigation” into the matter.
In a series of tweets he said:
His fellow teammate, Rohan Joshi, also spoke up on the issue. Taking to Twitter he said:
‘Have Enough Women Spoken up for TVF to Take This Seriously?'
Indian comedian, screenwriter and lyricist Varun Grover on Monday asked “whether enough women had spoken up” for the TVF team to take the sexual harassment allegations against their founder Arunabh Kumar seriously. He also slammed the company for “threatening the anonymous victim” in their comment on the article accusing Kumar.
Filmmakers Hansal Mehta and Apurva Asrani also commented on the controversy. While Mehta called for harassment at workplace to be “denounced”, Asarani tweeted that he’s sharing the article as he knows someone who faced a “similar ordeal”.
Stand-up comedian Kenny Sebastian pointed at the “casualness” around the serious matter which he said is “super scary”.
Comedian Kanan Gill, too, stressed on “creating a safe environment where people can voice their issues”.
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