After facing flak for his stand on the #MeToo movement, celebrity author Chetan Bhagat on Wednesday took to a social media site to put up his defence claiming that he was "not the harasser."
In a Facebook post, addressed to his "fans and readers," he said, "In the garb of the #MeToo movement, which definitely has genuine cases, I am being attacked and vilified. Let me tell you upfront — I am not a harasser. Never was, never will be."
The 44-year-old Bhagat, a former management expert, said a girl with whom he became "friendly" leaked screenshots of a conversation he had with her. "Anyway, since I am married, it was seen as an attempted infidelity, and hence, the right thing to do was to apologise, which I did instantly. To the person in question and to my wife. Beyond that, this was a personal matter. Legally too, there was nothing more to it, as anyone who has seen those chats would agree," he said.
"Please bear in mind that baseless allegations like these affect my wife, my 70-year-old mother, my elderly in-laws and my teenage twin sons. Each of them suffer(s) in (his or her) their own way. The amount of suffering a false charge like this creates is immense," said Bhagat, who authored novels like 2 States and Half Girlfriend.
On the charges levelled by the "Erotica Writer", the woman who shared the screenshots of the conversation between Bhagat and her on social media, he said, "I would hence, like to officially put a stop to this nonsense targeting me. I am no harasser, and I need to work on issues in my personal life that are not anybody’s business. From now on, Ms Erotica-Writer or anybody else, I would not be responding to any such posts. The courts of the country are available to you; please go there if you have a case (PS: you don’t)."
He, however, said that the #MeToo movement was "getting corrupted."
He wrote, "The #MeToo movement has its good parts and has some good people with genuine grievances. I am with them. However, the movement is already getting corrupted and genuine survivors will suffer if people don’t take it seriously."
Below is the link to Bhagat's Facebook post.
https://www.facebook.com/chetanbhagat.fanpage/posts/10156776050481602?__tn__=K-R
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