Sexual Harassment Complaint Against Filmmaker Anurag Kashyap, Actor Payal Ghosh Says He Forced Himself On Her

Film actress Payal Ghosh on Saturday evening (19 September) accused well known filmmaker Anurag Kashyap of sexual harassment. The actress put out a tweet describing how the director forced himself on her. She later confirmed the allegation while speaking to the media.

In the tweet she put out Payal said that Kashyap 'forced himself on me and extremely badly'. Further, she said that she had wanted to come out with the accusation when the MeToo movement was bringing out sexual offenders. However, she says she was threatened with the possibility of not getting any work in the industry once she accused a high profile film maker of harassment.

"I had tweeted about my incident sometime ago when the MeToo movement had happened, but many people told me to delete the tweet else I would stop getting work. My manager too advised me to remove the tweet. I complied. Post that, Anurag blocked me on WhatsApp", she told reporters from Times of India.

Describing the assault by Anurag Kashyap, Payal said that Kashyap took her to a separate room where he tried to force himself on her.

Ghosh said that she managed to get away that day by saying that she would return and that Kashyap told her that such sexual encounters are quite normal in the film industry.

Kashyap responded to the allegations later saying that these were attempts to silence him.

"Wow, it took so long in the attempt to silence me. It's ok. In the attempt to silence me, you dragged several other women despite being a woman yourself. Have some limit Madam. Will just want to say that whatever the accusations are, they are all unsubstantiated", he said a Hindi tweet (translated).

"I do not engage in such behavior or tolerate it. Whatever happens we shall see. One can see in your video how much of it is truth and how much of it isn't. Blessings and love to you. Apologies for answering your English with my hindi.", he further said in his tweets in Hindi (translated above)

Kashyap is a known critic of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He has in the past demanded that Modi produce his father's birth certificate, accused him of 'dividing the country' and has even described the Bharatiya Janata Party as 'terrorist'.