Mumbai Mirror reported on Wednesday that Vikas Behl has been kicked out of the film production house that he co-founded with three others in 2011. According to information available with the tabloid, a young woman working at Phantom Films had alleged that she was molested by Vikas Bahl, director of Queen, on a trip to Goa a few months ago.
After her complaint to the other stakeholders at Phantom, Anurag Kashyap, Vikramaditya Motwane and Madhu Mantena, the matter was escalated to Reliance Entertainment with whom Phantom has a 50-50 joint venture. The serious nature of the allegations resulted in the company setting up a committee as per the Vishakha guidelines to hear her grievance. One of the stakeholders, who wished to be anonymous told the tabloid, "We (Reliance Entertainment and Phantom Films) have taken a hard stand, based on what we have heard and investigated." According to the anonymous source and many others close to the development, Vikas Bahl, who had already stopped attending office, was formally told on March 28 to step down from his position.
The report further quoted the said stakeholder as saying, "The decision needed to be taken because it was getting too much.There are not one, two or three but multiple victims. I was in the middle of a film shoot when I came to know about the first incident and I had to stop my shoot and come to Mumbai... there is (after all) a young girl on whom an intoxicated Vikas forced himself while they were in Goa. He has behaved badly in the past as well but when this specific complaint came, we needed to act on it."
However, the man at the centre of these allegations denies them categorically, and so does another Phantom partner, Madhu Mantena, who said no action had been taken against the Queen director. Bahl, who is currently in Delhi, tending to his ailing mother, spoke to the tabloid's reporter on the phone, and said, "Nothing has happened. I am running the company. There is no complaint to HR and there is no Vishakha committee. I have heard about this particular lady you are speaking about and the Goa incident. She is not my employee. Yes, I am friends with her, we have worked together and there is a production job we have done together... but if she is feeling like this I would like to sit across a table from her and talk to her. I want to ask her if I have crossed a line, whether I have done anything to hurt her and if she feels that way I would like to apologise for it. I have known her for long. For two-and-a half years she has never made me feel as if she is uncomfortable. I have worked very hard to be the person I have become. I do feel a little victimised but I don't know what to do about that," adding that it was not a case of a relationship gone wrong either.
Contrary to his protestations one of his partners informed that lawyers are crawling over the proceedings and the investigations are still going on. Proclaiming to be "heart-broken, disillusioned, angry and pissed off" the partner told the tabloid that the company's action against Bahl was not easy. "It's a scary place to be in because he's my best friend. It's not easy, right?" Citing the action against Bahl as a game changer in Bollywood, he added, "This industry is filled with instances like this aur yeh sadiyon se chalta aa raha hai. But it has to stop, and we will make sure it is done the right way. It is important to see this through. Vikas being sacked will affect everyone." The tabloid sent multiple messages, phone calls and detailed e-mails to Reliance Entertainment COO Shibashish Sarkar and Head of Marketing Sameer Chopra that went unacknowledged.
On his part, Bahl said he had absolutely nothing to hide and that he had no idea why somebody might try to make these allegations against him. He was quoted as saying, "People really like me. I don't know why anyone would stoop to this level."