Anurag Kashyap hit with sexual harassment claims
After a tweet and an interview to a Telugu channel, actor Payal Ghosh started trending on TwitterT on Saturday evening. Accusing filmmaker Anurag Kashyap of sexual assault, she wrote, “he forced himself on me and extremely badly”.
In the video interview, she revealed, “I went to meet him, and the next day, he took me to his room, just opened his zip and tried to force his c*** into my vagina. He said ‘all actresses who’ve worked with me like Huma Qureshi, Richa Chadha, Mahie Gill, they are just a call away. Whenever I call them, they come running and suck my c***’.”
Speaking to us, Ghosh claims people dissuaded her from speaking out till now. “This incident happened during the time he was making Bombay Velvet. My brother and family said don’t talk about this, you will get into controversy,” she says.
Ghosh adds that she tried tweeting about this at least five-six times, once as recently as two months back. “I tagged him, too, but I was forced by my manager and brother to delete it. My friends said if you are speaking the truth, your career can be hampered,” she says.
While Kashyap has denied all allegations, actor Kangana Ranaut came out in support of Ghosh. Among others who came out spoke out in favour of Kashyap were actors Taapsee Pannu, Surveen Chawla, Mahie Gill, and filmmakers Vasan Bala and Anubhav Sinha.
National Commission for Women (NCW) chairperson Rekha Sharma took cognisance of Ghosh’s tweet and wrote back to her. At the time of going to press, we are told NCW has had a chat with Ghosh who had said “she will send the complaint shortly”.