Comedian and TV host Kapil Sharma and Mumbai-based film journalist Vickey Lalwani have lodged police complaints against each other after a telephonic spat on Friday evening.
Sharma has accused Lalwani of defamatory writing and threats of extortion, harassment in connivance with his two former managers - Neeti Simoes and Preeti Simoes, while Lalwani, the Content Head with SpotboyE-com, owned by 9X Media, has shot back with a complaint to Mumbai police accusing him of threats, abuse, harassment, and other charges.
"On Friday evening, Kapil Sharma made a call at 6.11 p.m. and used extremely bad and unparliamentary language. The call has gone viral over social media and I have been flooded with calls of support. This is nothing but yet another attempt to muzzle the media," Lalwani told IANS.
Sharma said in his complaint that the Simoes sisters worked as his managers, but since their performance was not upto the mark, he had terminated their contracts last year.
Both the sisters had deep insight into Sharma's personal associations, day to day businesses and privy to even his personal life, said his lawyer Tanveer Nizam.
Since the past six months, there have been several posts on SpotboyE.com and a person approached them to cough out Rs 2.50 million as the company (SpotboyE.com) had lot of damning information that could ruin the comedian, said Nizam, adding Sharma did not succumb as he was not inclined to give in to the surging "fake media".
Later, he said that the SpotboyE.com started uploading negative and exaggerated news into the public domain and some it was only available with his ex-managers, the Simoes sisters.
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All this false and malicious publicity has affected him emotionally and he is currently under professional counseling and also medication for which he held responsible the Simoes' and Lalwani.
Lalwani said that in his phone call, Sharma used extremely bad language, but nowhere did he accuse him of extortion demands.
"What we have written are facts only, and all other media also are writing about it, so how can we alone be blamed for it?" he asked.
Late on Friday, Sharma posted a series of tweets that were found objectionable, and later these were deleted on grounds that his Twitter account was hacked.
Today, (Saturday), however, the comedian revealed that his Twitter account was not hacked but his team deleted the posts, but he stood by his comments.
--IANS
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