Fox Star Studios
, the production house backing
Mukesh Chhabra’s directorial venture ‘
Kizzie Aur Manny
’, has announced its decision to “suspend the services” of the casting director-turned-filmmaker until the Internal Complaints Committee (ICC) concludes its inquiry into the allegations against him.
The studio released a statement on their official
Twitter handle that read, “As a responsible organization,
Star India
takes any allegation of sexual harassment of women at workplace very seriously hence Fox Star Studios has suspended the services of Mukesh Chhabra, director of our film, Kizzie Aur Manny, which is under production, till the Internal Complaints Committee (ICC) of M/s Mukesh Chhabra Casting Compay concludes its inquiry into the allegations against him.”
This statement comes almost a week after a Mid-Day report listed four separate incidents of sexual harassment against casting directors Mukesh Chhabra and Vicky Sidana. While one unnamed woman claimed that Mukesh “felt her up”, another shared a phone conversation where she was asked to compromise and “get physical with people in power”.
As the #MeToo movement picks up steam in India, reports claimed that ‘Kizzie Aur Manny’ lead actor
Sushant Singh Rajput was allegedly “misbehaving” with his co-star Sanjana Sanghi.
Sushant released screenshots of his chats with his co-star in a bid to defend himself on the sexual harassment case.
Director Mukesh Chhabra too came out in support of his actor and said that no such incident took place on the sets and that he is completely supportive of the actor's version of the story. He further mentioned that he had already clarified the same long back.
Sanjana Sanghi, however, hasn’t reacted on the matter as yet.