On March 12, an anonymous post from an alleged female employee of entertainment network The Viral Fever accused founder Arunabh Kumar of sexual harassment.
The post lists out incidents of alleged misconduct against Kumar, beginning in 2014.
"Right from Pitchers to Tripling, I was molested. Be it in parties, where Arunabh would try to lift me, or would try and fall on me pretending he is drunk."
The author also alleged that she was intimidated by the company's legal team, and threatened with "breach of contract" if she quit.
Since the allegations were published, others have come forward with similar accusations of harassment against Kumar.
"So many people online were doubting the legitimacy of what Indian Fowler said just because she said it anonymously. It was important someone stood up and spoke out about this. It’s time we as a society stop blindly doubting every time a girl speaks up against harassment," Sengupta told BuzzFeed.
The gravity of the allegations have already resulted in calls for The Viral Fever to be boycotted.
This morning, TVF released a statement denying all allegations:
This is an official response from TVF on the anonymous article published on Medium by the Indian Fowler. The article is completely ludicrous and defamatory against TVF and its team.
All the allegations made against TVF and its team in the article are categorically false, baseless and unverified. We take a lot of pride in our team and in making TVF a safe workplace that is equally comfortable for women and men.
We will leave no stone unturned to find the author of the article and bring them to severe justice for making such false allegations.
It is our humble request that you do not to share an unsubstantiated, unverified and anonymous article such as this. We would like to thank all our fans and friends for their continued support.
Kumar's fellow TVF colleagues have also come forward to dismiss the accusations, and have claimed that no such employee ever existed.
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 :(
Sensationalism > Facts
TVF's statement neither gives weight to the allegations, nor promises an investigation. Rather, it says that they will "find the author of the article and bring them to severe justice".
Hi TFV could you at least try to sound less goon-ish?
TVF doesn't even talk about investigating the allegations. Their immediate response - shame the victim. ... Talk about a safe environment.
Most importantly, TVF's first response (if it is the official one) sounds more like a threat than a genuine attempt to find out the truth.