On Wednesday – All India Backchod (AIB), a Mumbai-based creative agency known for their YouTube sketches – issued a statement saying: “AIB’s YouTube channel is for all intents and purposes, dead for the foreseeable future.”
In October 2018, Tanmay Bhat, the CEO of the company, was accused of not taking any action against comedian Utsav Chakraborty – AIB’s employee – after several women, last year, made allegations against him for sending lewd messages to minors over the phone.
After the allegations surfaced, Bhat stepped down as the company’s CEO and AIB discontinued all the projects he was associated with at the time.
Bhat uploaded the statement on his social media account with an apology saying, “I am deeply sorry for the distress I’ve caused to my friends, and anyone affected by my actions. I am deeply sorry to my colleagues who’ve had to go through immense stress that I feel responsible for.”
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As per the statement, Bhat “will no longer hold the position of CEO” and that his “lapse of judgement regarding Utsav Chakraborty was egregious.”
Furthermore, it said that comedians Rohan Joshi and Ashish Shakya will be taking care of the company’s “remaining affairs”
Gursimran Khamba, another AIB employee, was also accused of sexual harassment around the same time. As soon as the allegations surfaced on social media, the company sent Khamba on temporary leave and set-up an external committee to look into the matter.
However, according to the statement, Khamba will also not be part of the company anymore as he withdrew from the investigation process midway “citing issues with the procedure.”
Khamba, in his response, posted on Instagram saying, “..the process which lasted 4 months was replete with procedural lapses and didn’t follow the course of natural justice… I requested the committee to recuse itself and a separate and a fresh committee to be constituted. My request was denied and hence I was left with no choice but to withdraw from the inquiry.”
In his post, he also announced that he will launch his own comedy consultancy called Light@27 in the near future.
Featured image credit: Twitter