After multiple reports of sexual harassment against former TVF CEO Arunabh Kumar in April, The Viral Fever Videos on Friday announced the appointment of Dhawal Gusain as the company’s new chief executive officer. Significantly, Gusain has been a part of TVF since 2015 as the chief operating officer of the company.
He is a B-tech from IIT Kharagpur and an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business, Gusain has worked with a number of companies across various sectors and geographies at various locations in India and the United States.
Though Kumar got an interim relief from arrest by a session court in Mumbai, cases have been lodged against him at a police station in Andheri East on March 29 after multiple women accused him of harassing them.
Earlier, a complaint against him was from a Mumbai-based production house who alleged that he has touched her inappropriately during a meet. A FIR was lodged against him by the MIDC police on March 29. After which he was also accused of molestation and sexual harassment in an anonymous blog post. Following the pattern, two more women alleged that they have undergone similar violation by Kumar. One complainer was an ex-employee of TVF on the basis of which a FIR has been lodged against him in Versova Police Station.
On March 12, in a blog post on Medium titled “The Indian Uber – That Is TVF”, a former employee of the entertainment company chronicled the months of harassment Kumar had allegedly subjected her to since 2014. She accused him of making obscene comments, molesting her and making countless passes at her both in office and during shoots and also “acting as a pimp”. The post was later taken down after Kumar lodged a complaint with the website.
However, TVF, too, declared the claims “false, baseless and unverified”, much like Kumar.
“We take a lot of pride in our team and in making TVF a safe workplace that is equally comfortable for women and men. We will leave no stone unturned to find the author of the article and bring them to severe justice for making such false allegations.”, the company had said.
