Arunabh Kumar, the CEO of The Viral Fever (TVF), a web production house based out of Mumbai, has rubbished the allegations of sexual harassment that have gone viral on social media.
In a statement, a TVF spokesperson said, "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."
Earlier, an anonymous user, who says she worked with TVF until 2016, took to social media, alleging sexual harassment by Kumar.
The user, who goes by the name 'Indian Fowler', shared the post on medium.com. The person says she stayed with the company for three years before walking out because of the constant harassment.
The user, in the article titled The Indian Uber- That Is TVF, initially found Kumar to be a 'charming fellow'. “What caught my attention was that he was another man from my same native state – Bihar who was trying to make a presence felt in Mumbai,” the person wrote.
The blog also says that one more thing that Indian Fowler and Kumar had in common was that they hailed from the same city – Muzaffarpur. “We moved “Main” to “Hum”. Indian Fowler confesses to being in awe of Kumar then and the way he had built TVF. “Start-ups were cool and Arunabh Kumar looked Uber Cool.”
Indian Fowler was then offered a job. “Biswa (Biswapati Sarkar famous for parodying Arnab Goswami) and Arunabh were the ones running the show. While the others would spend nights getting things done, I would wonder where is Arunabh in all this. The answer was, he is hiring talent. Yes. He was hiring. Talent or not I don’t know. 3 years down the line I know what he was hiring. He was hiring his toys,” alleged the person.
Recalling three incidents of molestation, which allegedly began on her 21st day at office, Indian Fowler, says that the final straw was when Kunal Roy Kapoor (KRK) came to the office and Arunabh allegedly offered her services to him. “Arunabh promised to serve him (KRK) couple of us on a platter… I walked out of the place last year. Jobless, Mindless. I don’t have much to say. I am not as strong as many other women. I just need my life back. I don’t think these guys would let me have one. The constant reminders from their legal on my obligations tells me that I am being tracked.
The user also threatened to approach the police to which Arunabh allegedly told her that the cops were in his pocket and nothing would be done.
