After the Arunabh Kumar molestation row erupted, The Viral Fever largely defended the TVF CEO, calling the allegations of sexual harassment in the workplace false and baseless. Among the TVF staff who rubbished these allegations were Biswapati Sarkar, Nidhi Bisht and Arunabh himself. However, soon after the blog, which was posted on Medium, went viral, Bisht changed her defensive stance and pushed for the matter to be further investigated.
Earlier, Bisht had called the blogger’s accusations “baseless” and “fictitious”. The author of the blog titled The Indian Uber – That Is TVF claimed to have joined TVF in 2014. Soon after she joined, the author, who claims to be from the same city as Arunabh, was allegedly harassed by him. “I walk up. He says it’s time we do a quickie. I am stunned. And I told him I will go to the police. He said: `Police to meri pocket me hai’,” she wrote.
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The author of an anonymous blog posted on Sunday alleged that The Viral Fever founder Arunabh Kumar had made sexual advances at her.
In response to the viral blog, Bisht tweeted, “5 yrs at TVF & no memory of who this Female employee is. It’s a baseless fictitious allegation. Haters pls don’t stoop down to this level :(.” In his recent statement, even Arunabh claimed that TVF hasn’t hired anyone from his hometown Muzaffarpur in over three years.
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5 yrs at TVF & no memory of who this Female employee is. It’s a baseless fictitious allegation. Haters pls don’t stoop down to this level 🙁
— Nidhi NEETU Bisht (@EkThapaTiger) March 13, 2017
However, soon after the news blew out, two other women pointed fingers at TVF, alleging workplace harassment. While one of them, a former TVF employee Aayushi Aggarwal, said that The Viral Fever is no place for a woman to work, hinting at suffering sexual harassment at TVF, another woman named Reema Sengupta published a detailed account of Arunabh’s behaviour towards her. “In the middle of the shoot, he touches my shoulder tattoo and tells me he finds it sexy,” she wrote.
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As the tables turned against TVF, Bisht called for the case to be investigated as opposed to outright dismissing the legitimacy of the allegations. She stated, “When the first blog post came out 24 hours back, I dismissed it completely because there was no such person of that description in the company at that time.”
She assured that TVF would assist any employee in finding justice and would urged women to file a formal complaint. “TVF has zero tolerance towards workplace harassment and an investigation will be conducted and appropriate actions will be taken. We have a Prevention of Sexual Harassment committee, backed by Legal and HR which deals with such issues,” she added. Here’s the full post:
