On Monday, stand-up comedy group All India Bakchod announced that it had asked co-founder and CEO Tanmay Bhat to step away from his association with the company until further notice. This implies that Bhat will not be involved with the day-to-day functioning of the company.
Meanwhile, Gursimran Khamba, who was accused of sexually harassing a woman through text messages, has also been placed on a temporary leave of absence.
“We have been closely monitoring the sequence of events on social media around the allegations against AIB and also against our Co-founder and CEO, Tanmay Bhat. We cannot overlook Tanmay's role and in light of this, he will be stepping away from his association with AIB until further notice. This implies that Tanmay will not be involved with the day to day functioning of AIB or in any other manner.
“We have also just been appraised of the allegations against Gursimran Khamba on social media. At this point in time, these allegations pertain to a private matter, and he has released a statement of his own about the same. However, as an organisation, we believe that it would be prudent to place Gursimran Khamba on a temporary leave of absence until we have more clarity on the matter.
“We understand that disconcert of any kind adversely affects the work culture and creates an unsafe space for our employees. Nobody should have to work in an environment such as that, and we hope to enable measures to establish our commitment to creating a gender sensitive workspace. We are in the process of consulting various experts to ensure that our work culture incorporates sensitivity, inclusivity, respect and fairness.
“As mentioned, at this time, both of our senior partners are immediately stepping away from all business at AIB. Truthfully, we do not know what this means for the future of AIB or whether there is one. In the interim, Ashish Shakya, Rohan Joshi and other senior team members will work towards being able to answer that question over the next several months,” the statement read.
Days after AIB comedian Utsav Chakraborty was accused of sending explicit images to a number of women on social media, another comedian from the group, both co-founders Tanmay Bhat and Gursimran Khamba, has been accused, of mental harassment by an anonymous woman, who knew them on a personal level.
Admitting to hanging out with Khamba a few times in 2015, the woman later admitted that he developed feelings for her, which she did not reciprocate. This did not go down well with the comedian, who continued refusing to take no for an answer. "This was followed by him being angry and nasty and abusive," the woman alleged. Khamba has also been accused of making drunk calls, and emotionally blackmailing and abusing the woman for not reciprocating his advances.
On Friday, Stand-up comic group All India Bakchod (AIB) issued a statememt a day after they were called out for 'defending' comedian Utsav Chakraborty, who had admitted to sending sexually explicit images to women on social media. However, Chakraborty has denied the allegations that he had sent any images to minors.
The Twitter user, who made the allegations, started a thread condemning Utsav Chakraborty’s sexual misconduct with women, especially minor girls. He has been accused of asking minors to send ‘nudes’.
She then went on to share examples of how “Chakraborty had in fact sent sexually explicit messages to her and to many other women.”
The threat led to a number of women sharing their stories, prompting AIB to release a statement on Thursday.
However, the group has also been called out for their statement by the user, who had in her thread said she had spoken to the founding members of the team, but to no avail. AIB then tweeted this, ""Also, a ton of rumours and allegations flying around suggesting Utsav is / was AIB’s Head Writer. Utsav was never our Head Writer. Also, Utsav has not been an employee at AIB since the end of 2016."
Utsav, too, issued a statement, which claimed that the situation was more 'complicated' than what it appeared to be. He then went on to cite how his 'mental illness' had prompted him to behave the way he did.
