A year after allegations of sexual harassment surfaced against him, singer-composer Anu Malik has now responded with an open letter. Calling the allegations “false and unverified”, Anu Malik went on to claim that he could not have committed the acts as he has "two daughters".
According to the composer, he has been silent all this time as he has been “waiting for the truth to surface on its own”. “However, I realise that my silence in the matter has been misconstrued as my weakness,” he said in the letter posted on his Instagram page on Thursday.
Anu Malik has been accused of sexual harassment and misconduct by several singers, including Sona Mohapatra and Alisha Chinai, and and other women. Most recently, singer Neha Bhasin called him "a predator".
In an attempt to discredit these women, the singer-composer even poses the same set of questions that people often ask survivors of sexual assault and harassment: “Why wasn’t this (the allegations) spoken about before? Why do these allegations resurface only when I am back on television, which is currently my only source of livelihood?”
Anu Malik is one of the judges on the music reality show, Indian Idol. Sony channel has received flak in the past for having Anu Malik as a judge on the show.
He then also goes on to talk about the impact of these allegations have had on him and his family. According to him, it has affected their mental health, leaving them “traumatised” and tarnishing his career. “I feel helpless like I am being cornered and suffocated,” he said.
Anu Malik also offers a questionable justification on why the allegations against him are false: “Being a father of two daughters, I can’t imagine committing the acts that I am accused of, let alone do it.”
Hinting at legal recourse, he wrote, “Fighting a battle on social media is an endless process, at the end of which, nobody wins. If this keeps on continuing, I will have no option but to knock on the doors of the courts to safeguard myself.”
Thanking his well-wishers for supporting him, Anu Malik concluded, saying he is “in pain” and in a “dark space”, and that all he wants is justice.
Singer Sona Mohapatra responds
Responding to Anu Malik’s open letter, singer Sona Mohapatra, who is one of the few voices in the Hindi film industry to have consistently spoken up about the Me Too movement, has publicly called out the channel for rehiring him.
She had alleged that Anu Malik had objectified her by referring to her as “maal” to her husband, Ram Sampath, in 2006; and that he would call her at late hours.
She also gave a point by point rebuttal to Anu Malik’s open letter. “These are multiple testimonies of independent sane women speaking coherently and they have a common thread and story. What about the ‘mental health’ of all these people who have gone through traumatic experiences because of you?” she questioned.
Sona also slammed Anu Malik’s argument that he couldn’t have sexually harassed his victims as he had two daughters. "Being a father of two daughters doesn’t prove anything. Clearly it hasn’t held your libido back. There is no link to being a husband, father, brother & being a predator," she wrote. She also challenged Anu Malik to go to court if he wished to.
Read her full response here: