#MeToo reached singers also, when Sona Mahapatra called out singer Kailash Kher and hinted at Anu Malik being a serial predator. Another singer Shweta Pandita accused Anu Malik of harassing her when she was 15 years old. The singer took to Twitter to accuse Malik in a lengthy post. She called him a ‘paedophile and sexual predator’ and said that he misbehaved with her when she was starting her career.
She wrote, “Had to go back to my worst memory as a teenage girl today to write this and speak up – its now or never. This is my #MeToo and have to warn young girls about #AnuMalik & let you know your #TimesUp @IndiaMeToo Thank you @sonamohapatra for speaking up about him & supporting this,” she wrote in her tweet.
She said that Anu’s manager called her in 2001 in Empire Studio where he asked her to sing a song. “I sang it well so he said, “I’ll give you this song with Sunidhi and Shaan but first give me a kiss. He then smiled, what I recall as the most evil grin I’ve seen,” she wrote. She added, “I was only 15 years old then, still in school. Can anyone even imagine what it felt that moment? It felt like someone had just stabbed me in my stomach. I referred to this man as ‘Anu uncle’, he knew my entire family for decades and knew us as a respected gharana of musicians for generations who have given our entire lives dedicated to music for 4 generations. He addressed my father as ‘Mandheer bhai’. And he does this to his bhai’s daughter?”
Anu Malik spoke to PTI and he denied all allegations. He said, “No comments. This is ridiculous. I don’t want to talk about it. Today anyone says anything.”
Also read: #MeToo: Chitrangda alleges Nawazuddin Siddiqui didn’t stand against my harassment