#MeToo gone wrong! AIB Fame Utsav Chakraborty’s breaks silence against his accuser, says 'I didn’t have enough money to afford a lawyer'

By Gurpreet Kaur

on November 22, 2019

In October last year, comedian Utsav Chakraborty, who has featured in some videos of comedy collective All India Bakchod (AIB), was accused of sexual harassment by multiple women who have come out about their experiences on social media. The allegations came to light as part of a Twitter thread about the way Indian men behaved onboard a cruise liner. It led a woman to allege that Chakraborty had sent unsolicited pictures of private parts to women and harassed girls, including minors, through social media platforms.

Now a year later, netizens found #MeToo and ‘Utsav Chakraborty’ (@Wootsav) trending again on Twitter. And this time, an audio recording has come to light, which claims to reveal the other half of the conversation. It has the accuser Mahima Kukreja's sister and lawyer threatening Utsav with legal action if he released screenshots that could potentially discredit some of the allegations. In the clip, Utsav can be heard talking about the accuser's rash decision of posting allegations without verifying their authenticity. It certainly raises doubt over allegations against Utsav.

Utsav just got in touch with me. I like others in the community had abandoned him believing whatever @AGirlOfHerWords had to say but wtf is this? Why is her lawyer threatning him to hide his side? Let's not be quiet on this and have a spine here.https://t.co/AuBazeFBPB

— Sourav Ghosh (@SouravGhosh87) November 20, 2019

Not just that, in a series of tweets, Utsav claimed to have tracked down a few of the women, who had accused him, be getting them to admit that their allegations weren’t entirely true.

In fact, in an interview with a website, Utsav revealed that he did not opt for the legal route because “I didn’t have any means to approach legally since everyone had abandoned me. I didn’t have enough money to afford a lawyer. I had less than Rs 20,000 in my account. My source for payments also stopped responding.”

He also slammed the comedy industry and said, “Stand up is a very hypocritical community, everyone is a competitor. It is that sudden ascent to power for most of them. It is a very bitchy one, we love to see the others taken down. But it was about someone getting called out for stealing jokes, and not something like this. This woman, however, started doing stand-up on an open mic three days before she called me out."

Last year, the allegations against Utsav come at a time when the Hindi film industry is in the midst of a raging debate ignited by former actress Tanushree Dutta's claims.

(Source: Twitter/Free Press Journal)