Mumbai: After Sona Mohapatra and other female singers, playback singer Shweta Pandit has accused music composer Anu Malik of sexual misconduct. She says that she is grateful for the #MeToo movement.
Shweta was a minor when Malik allegedly made sexual advances towards her. He was recently reappointed as a judge on reality show Indian Idol, sparking online furore.
Shweta in response to a tweet by fellow accuser Neha Bhasin, wrote, “Even in 2019, we are being questioned as victims, after myself being a professional singer in this industry for 2 decades-some narrow minds-why we didn’t speak then? Really losers? Imagine what would happen off me if I did speak in 2001 when I was a school kid? Thank God for #MeToo.”
Earlier, Neha had called out Sony TV, the channel that airs Indian Idol, for having reinstated Malik on the panel of judges, following his ouster a year ago. She’d written on Twitter, “Shweta Pandit was 15 when he misbehaved what does a child say. The shame u feel, the fear, the confusion. Please we need to stop questioning the victim. Its time u question the criminals.”
Singer Sona Mohapatra, who has been at the forefront of this debate, had written a long statement slamming Sony TV, and co-judges Vishal Dadlani and Neha Kakkar for not taking a stand on the matter.
She’d written, “It takes only a Nirbhaya level tragedy for #India to wake up? Few days after these, I was asked to leave my judge seat. My co-judge told me, the publicity I provided to Anu Malik took up the trps of our ‘rival’ show. (?!) A year later, a sexual predator is back on the same seat.”
Denying all claims, Anu Malik’s lawyer had said in a statement, “The allegations made against my client are emphatically denied as completely false and baseless. My client respects the #Metoo movement but to use this movement to start a character assassination mission is obnoxious.”