Slanderous and malicious: Karan Johar responds to drug use allegations

The ace Bollywood film-maker slammed reports of 'consuming narcotics and promoting consumption of such substances'

Amid speculations that he might be summoned by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) for questioning in the investigation over Bollywood-drugs links, the ace film-maker Karan Johar on Friday released a statement refuting all allegations against him. The Dharma Productions owner in his statement also claimed that he neither consumes narcotics nor promotes or encourages consumption of any such substance.

The statement read, "Certain news channels, print/ electronic media and social media platform(s) are wrongly and misleadingly reporting that narcotics were consumed at a party that I, Karan Johar hosted on July 28, 2019, at my residence. I had already clarified my position way back in 2019 that the allegations were false."

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Karan Johar (@karanjohar) on Sep 25, 2020 at 10:27am PDT

"In view of the current malicious campaign, I am reiterating that the allegations are completely baseless and false. No narcotics substance was consumed at the party. I would like to unequivocally once again state that I do not consume narcotics and I do not promote or encourage consumption of any such substance,” he penned, adding, “All these slanderous and malicious statements, news articles and news clippings have unnecessarily subjected me, my family, and my colleagues, and Dharma Productions, to hatred, contempt and ridicule.”

"I would like to further state that several media/news channels have been airing news reports that Kshitij Prasad and Anubhav Chopra are my "aides" / "close aides". I would like to place on record that I do not know these individuals personally and neither of these two individuals are "aides" or "close aides". Neither I nor Dharma Productions can be made responsible for what people do in their personal lives. These allegations do not pertain to Dharma Productions.”

"However, in the past few days, the media has resorted to distasteful, distorted and false allegations. I hope the members of the media would exercise restraint else I will be left with no option but to legally protect my rights against this baseless attack on me," he concluded.

A video shared by Johar on social media last year has gone viral recently after the NCB started probing Bollywood's alleged drugs link and summoned several top stars such as Deepika Padukone, Sara Ali Khan, Rakul Preet Singh and Shraddha Kapoor.

In the video, several Bollywood A-listers can be seen attending a house party hosted by the film-maker. The guests as visible in the video, include Bollywood stars Padukone, Ranbir Kapoor, Vicky Kaushal, Shahid Kapoor, Varun Dhawan, Malaika Arora, and Arjun Kapoor, besides film-makers Zoya Akhtar and Ayan Mukerji.

Johar's statement comes at a time when Dharma Productions director and executive producer Kshitij Ravi Prasad has already been summoned for joining the investigations into the drugs cases linked to film personalities being probed by the NCB.

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