Casting director Mukesh Chhabra has been sacked by Fox Star Productions Hindi, the makers of Kizie Aur Manny, amid allegations of sexual harassment against him. The production house took to social media to put out an official statement saying, "As a responsible organization, Star India takes any allegation of sexual harassment of women at workplace very seriously hence Fox Star Studios has suspended the services of Mukesh Chhabra, director of our film, Kizzie Aur Manny, which is under production, till the Internal Complaints Committee (ICC) of M/s Mukesh Chhabra Casting Company concludes its inquiry into the allegations against him." #MeToo Movement: Sushant Singh Rajput’s Kizie Aur Manny Director Mukesh Chhabra Accused of Accosting for Sex By Anonymous Woman.

A few days back, Mid-Day has published a report in which two women levelled accusations against Mukesh Chhabra anonymously. One aspiring actress had serious allegations against Mukesh as she shared a phone recording with the news daily. In the recording, which dates back a couple of years,  Mukesh can be heard saying, "You'll have to compromise, get physical with people in power. I am not promising that people ready to compromise get selected. Everyone is ready to compromise. It's no big deal. We can meet at a hotel tonight."

Another aspiring actress recalled her 2015 run in with Mukesh. She said, "He asked me to enact a scene which had the hero and the heroine hugging each other. Under the pretext of showing me how the scene should be performed, he grabbed me hard and felt me up. I could feel his hand on my butt. I was shell-shocked and immediately withdrew. He realised [my trepidation] and started vehemently apologising. At one point, he said, I thought you were fine with it because other girls are."

Apart from him, several names like Sajid Khan, Nana Patekar, Vikas Bahl, Kailash Kher, Abhijeet Bhattacharya, Anu Mallik, Subhash Ghai and many more have cropped up. with each passing day, the #MeToo movement is just getting stronger with more and more survivors speaking up.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Oct 19, 2018 01:08 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).