Battling harassment charges, Arunabh Kumar quits as TVF CEO

MUMBAI/BENGALURU: Arunabh Kumar, the founder of video content company

The Viral Fever

(

TVF

) who is facing sexual harassment cases, has stepped down as CEO. Kumar, in a tweet on Friday, said he would be available as a ‘mentor’ for the company.

In an open letter on Friday, Kumar stated, “In the wake of recent personal attacks, what really breaks me is the blemish on the brand’s true promise. I have therefore taken the decision to step down as the CEO of TVF.”

He added that he had faith and confidence that eventually truth would prevail.

The company, which is funded by leading global private equity firm Tiger Global, has elevated COO Dhawal Gusain as CEO. Gusain, an MBA from

Stanford Graduate School of Business

and a B-Tech from

IIT Kharagpur

, has been with TVF since 2015.

Kumar who had remained unavailable for the last few months seemed hard at trying to make amends for his offence on Friday. If at first he called his initial reaction a “grave mistake”, he went on to “apologize” for letting people down and “humbly accept the brickbats” they had received for “that insensitive response”. In the first official statement, TVF had denied all the allegations and called them “false, baseless and unverified”.

In his justification, Kumar said, “The last few months have been the most challenging ones of my life… Lot of people wanted me to say something or tell my side of the story but I did not because I learnt the hard way what happens when you say anything in haste.”

Kumar had found himself in the eye of this storm in March after a person with the username Indian

Fowler

posted a blog alleging that Kumar had sexually harassed her when she was working at TVF between 2014 and 2016. TVF initially denied the claims made in the post. But multiple women later came out making similar charges against Kumar. TVF then said it had set up a committee to investigate the allegations.

On March 29, based on a complaint filed by a former employee of the company, police registered a case against Kumar and booked him under sections 354A (causing sexual harassment) and 509 (insult the modesty of a woman by indecent words, gesture or acts) of the IPC. A similar case was registered against him at the

Versova

police station the next day. He was given bail in April.