Bengali filmmakers flay 'bid to malign entire fraternity' as director accused of sexual misconduct

Kolkata: Over 50 filmmakers of the Bengali film industry on Sunday issued a statement voicing their anguish over alleged attempts to malign the entire fraternity after charges of sexual misconduct were brought against a well-known director.

Referring to the recent decision of the Directors' Association of Eastern India (DAEI) to suspend the accused director, the filmmakers' body said one such incident should not be used as a tool to tarnish the image of the entire fraternity by making wild claims about "casting couch".

"We have already made it clear that if someone is found guilty, he should not be shielded and stern action must be taken against him. Our guild has already taken steps in this regard. But we will resist any effort to use one incident as a tool to malign the entire community of directors," the statement said.

Among those who signed the statement were Kaushik Ganguly, Parambrata Chatterjee, Indranil Roy Choudhury, Soukarjya Ghosal, Abhijit Guha, Sudeshna Roy, Anjan Dutt, Ashok Biswanathan, Haranath Chakraborty and Subrata Sen.

The DAEI had recently put filmmaker Arindam Sil under indefinite suspension on charges of sexual misconduct against an actress on the sets of a film.

Sil had claimed the DAEI had taken a unilateral decision without hearing his version and expressed regret if he had "accidentally touched" anyone during the shoot to explain a scene.

He had also said apologised for any such "unintentional conduct" in a letter to the state women's commission.

In Sunday's statement, the directors said if there was any defamatory statement by any stakeholder in the Bengali film industry targeting the directors as a group, they would collectively take legal action.

The statement was preceded by allegations from some quarters that "casting couch" by filmmakers was prevalent in the Bengali film industry.