Rajkumar Hirani, director of blockbuster films like 3 Idiots, PK, and the Munna Bhai series, has been accused of sexual assault by a woman who worked with him, it was reported by HuffPost India.
The woman said Hirani sexually abused her more than once between March and September 2018, mainly during the post production work of Sanju, the Sanjay Dutt biopic which released in June, 2018.
The woman wrote about the alleged assault in an email dated November 3, 2018, addressed it to Sanju co-producer Vidhu Vinod Chopra. She also copied the email to Chopra’s wife Anupama, who is the director of the Mumbai Film Festival (MAMI) and a director of Vinod Chopra Films Pvt. Ltd, and scriptwriter Abhijat Joshi.
Hirani has denied the allegations, responding through his lawyer Anand Desai, via an email sent to HuffPost India calling the accusations “false, mischievous, scandalous, motivated and defamatory.”
The woman has said that on April 9, 2018, Hirani first made a sexually suggestive remark to her and then sexually assaulted her at his home-office, as reported by HuffPost India.
As per HuffPost India, who also spoke to the woman, she was frightened of Hirani, who was her boss at the time, and is almost 30 years older than her. She said that she could not report it and had to remain “normal” as her father was suffering from a terminal illness, and she desperately needed to hold on to her job.
Anupama Chopra had sent an email to HuffPost India in December where she confirmed that the woman had shared an account with her, and that she has set up a committee to address sexual harassment allegation.
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