BENGALURU: Arunabh Kumar, the CEO of The Viral Fever (TVF) has been accused of sexual harassment by multiple people. The company called the allegations “ludicrous and defamatory”.
It started with a person, who used the pseudonym ‘Indian Fowler’ — a reference to former Uber employee Susan Fowler who raised similar charges recently against an executive at the global taxi aggregator — levelling accusations against Kumar through a post on the website Medium.
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In the post titled ‘The Indian Uber — That is TVF’, Indian Fowler wrote that she was propositioned and sexually harassed by Kumar on multiple occasions and that it had become “routine”.
She also said that when she confronted Kumar, she was told by the company’s legal department that she was in “breach of contract”. Responding to the incident several other women came out with their part of the story on Social Media;
Another woman, who reportedly studied with Arunabh Kumar at IIT, narrated a similar incident. “So, I messaged Arunabh on Facebook & we met for coffee, said Hi / Hello, etc, and I wanted to leave by 8-9pm.
Following social media outrage and multiple women speaking out online, Nidhi Bisht, a writer-director with TVF, wrote on Facebook that she is ‘equally shocked’ by the allegations and that TVF will launch an investigation into the claims. She toned down her previous stance where she outright rejected the allegations.
The company has however not responded to media, but later, TVF released a statement calling the article “ludicrous and defamatory” and the allegations as “false, baseless and unverified”. However, the statement attracted criticism for adding, “We will leave no stone unturned to find the author of the article and bring them to severe justice.”
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