Casting Director Mukesh Chhabra Replaced From India Film Project After Sexual Harassment Allegations

After allegations of sexual harassment against Bollywood casting director, Mukesh Chhabra, India Film Project (IFP) has replaced him with another film professional, informed Tess Joseph.

Tess Joseph is also a casting director.

Announcing the news on Twitter she wrote, "I spoke to IFP (India Film Project) this morning. Mukesh Chhabra has been replaced with another film professional. He is no longer on the panel. We at TJC support and stand by #MeToo #TimesUp #BelieveSurvivors @iFilmProject @TJCasting"

On Saturday, Mid-Day reported that four women shared their accounts of sexual harassment against casting directors Mukesh Chhabra and Vicky Sidana. The reports claimed that these unnamed women were harassed during separate auditions.

The report quoted one of the women saying, "Under the pretext of showing me how the scene should be performed, he grabbed me hard and felt me up."

The report also claims that in the phone call recording in Mid-Day’s possession, Chhabra could be heard telling somebody, "You'll have to compromise, get physical with people in power."

Denying all allegations, Mukesh later tweeted: “It is very unfortunate that years of hard work and building is been muzzled with a series of unsubstantiated wild anonymous allegations. To put it into perspective, we have an ICC committee put into the place for years and we could have appreciated if the complaint received could have been forwarded to the said committee for probe and investigation.”

Apart from him, names like Alok Nath, Sajid Khan, Subhash Ghai, Vikas Bahl and Nana Patekar among others are accused by women of sexual harassment.