#MeToo: Survivor of Vikas Bahl abuse requests court to drop her from defamation case

Tanushree Dutta spoke up against Nana Patekar, once again after a decade, causing the start of #MeToo movement in India.

This was followed by another strong accusation against filmmaker Vikas Bahl, director of Queen, who was part-owner of Phantom Films.

The case with Vikas got so bad that Phantom Films had to be dissolved on Anurag Kashyap’s word, who was the victim, an ex-employee of the firm’s confidante.

She released a statement which read, "I had an extremely deleterious effect on my professional and personal life and on my mental and emotional health."

While requesting the court to drop her name from Vikas Bahl’s defamation case, she further added, "I do not wish to relive any further what has transpired and I request that my presence in this proceedings be dispensed with and I dropped as a party. The absence of a written complaint or FIR does not and cannot take away from the truth of my statements. Why I have not made a police complaint is plain to see if one considers how formal process has failed to achieve any measure of accountability and lead only to the further victimisation of sexual assault survivors."

Huffington Post broke the news of the incident which took place back in 2015, during the promotional tours of Bombay Velvet.

Vikas allegedly masturbated on the ex-employee of Phantom Films, and the owners of Phantom Films, Anurag Kashyap and Vikramaditya Motwane, kept mum since there wasn’t much they could do in their power except dissolving the company altogether.