A 48-year-old filmmaker, Arghya Basu, who was part of the list of the accused people who were named in the #MeToo movement late last December, was found hanging in his flat on March 1. He was allegedly declared brought dead in a hospital.

The police did not recover a suicide note from the filmmaker’s apartment, although it has been reported that Arghya Basu became depressed after being named as a sexual predator. The depression eventually led to his tragic decision, apparently. A friend of the director stated, “After the accusations against him in end-2017, he suffered bouts of depression. Around April 2018, he took his family’s advice and underwent counselling for a month. After that, he was taking up freelance work. He edited a Tamil film, which was screened at the Rotterdam film festival. He completed editing a Marathi film. Now, both of us were working to launch our own venture. He also loved to dabble in organic farming. So, this was very shocking. I have spoken to his family and they are completely devastated.”

Arghya Basu was a former Films and Television Institute of India teacher and a documentary filmmaker. He was accused of sexual harassment by director Nishtha Jain of the National Award-Winning documentary ‘Gulabi Gang,’ which he denied. His body has been sent for a post-mortem while the police have launched a probe to determine the actual cause of the filmmaker’s suicide.