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Filmmaker And Former FTII Teacher Found Hanging At Kolkata Home

The director was rushed to the hospital but declared brought dead, police said.
Getty Images/ Representational image

A 48-year-old documentary filmmaker and editor was found dead in his flat in Kolkata by the police on Friday, news reports said.

“The filmmaker, Arghya Basu, living in Kolkata’s Santoshpur area, was found hanging in his flat on March 1,” a police officer told IANS.

Basu was rushed to the hospital but declared brought dead, police told Times of India.

Neighbours and friends said Basu had been depressed. Police say the post-mortem suggests he committed suicide, the report said.

Basu had been accused of sexual misconduct by a filmmaker when the #MeToo movement began globally in October 2017.

According to Times of India’s report, friends and family claimed he had been exonerated in a probe, presumably by the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), where he used to work.

“After the accusations against him in end-2017, he suffered bouts of depression,” Ankur Das, who had worked closely with Basu, told ToI.

An October 2017 Pune Mirror report had quoted an FTII dean as saying no complaints had been filed against Basu and two others.

In December, Swaroop Raj, a senior executive from Genpact, had committed suicide. He had been accused of sexual harassment by two employees at the firm, India Today reported.

Writer Sandhya Menon, who was one of the people leading the second wave of the #MeToo movement in India in September 2018, said Basu’s death was tragic and extended sympathy to his loved ones.

Menon said the case highlighted the failure of Internal Complaint Committees (ICCs) in dealing with cases of sexual harassment and misconduct.

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This article exists as part of the online archive for HuffPost India, which closed in 2020. Some features are no longer enabled. If you have questions or concerns about this article, please contact indiasupport@huffpost.com.