Comedian Neetu Bhardwaj has accused fellow comedians Abhishek Upmanyu, Urooj Ashfaq and Shashwat Maheshwari of allegedly stalking her and her family in Mumbai, hacking their phones, circulating their private information and plagiarising her work. In a series of Instagram Stories, Neetu levelled serious allegations against them, referring to the group as “comedy mafia”.
Neetu Bhardwaj alleges harassment
Neetu took to Instagram to allege that Upmanyu and Urooj had been harassing and stalking her. She wrote, “Guys I am being followed everywhere by the Mumbai comedy mafia of Upmanyu and Urooj and other. My family and I are really unsafe. All of our phones are hacked, all calls are being heard, all ur personal and private information is stolen and is being circulated.”
She added, “Even if I go to a nearby grocery store or take a walk in the park, I am being followed. If anything happens to me or any of my family members, it’s on these people.”
Neetu also alleged that Shashwat had been hacking her accounts since 2022 and mimicking her social media posts, tweets and WhatsApp messages. She claimed that he had used them to run smear campaigns against her, adding that she had been unaware of this at the time and was not even doing comedy in 2022 and 2023.
Neetu Bhardwaj accuses comedians Abhishek Upmanyu and Urooj of plagiarism
She further accused Abhishek Upmanyu and Urooj of plagiarising her work. Recalling an incident from last year, she wrote, “Last year, I went to Mumbai for 2 weeks. Then I went to Bangalore for recordings; I left my suitcase there, and all my notebooks and diaries where I have written all my jokes till now were in it. I thought I would come to back to Mumbai, but I got v sick in BLR and came home straight after. I left my suitcase there. Then, when I ordered it from there, the company didn’t send me the suitcase for a month. They copied all my material from those diaries. And all these written jokes from there are being used in their specials, especially Abhishek Upmanyu and Urooj Ashfaq. A lot of material that Urooj is using in her special is copied from my material.”
Neetu also alleged that the comedians were affiliated with the Illuminati and claimed that they had repeatedly made various accusations against her. She further alleged that Shashwat and his girlfriend had portrayed her as a stalker before blocking her, citing religious reasons and claiming that she worshipped Shiva and other Hindu deities.
In a series of Stories, Neetu accused Upmanyu, Urooj and Shashwat of stalking, harassing and torturing her, as well as spreading allegations, scandals and false stories about her. She also expressed concern for her family’s safety, saying, “They have all the details of my family’ ids, aadhar card, biometrics, bank accounts, bank statements, my mail accounts, social media accounts. For all I know, they could easily plant some evidence against me and my family.”
She added that she had left stand-up comedy because she found it depressing.
Neetu also urged the comedians to leave her alone, writing, “Let me live my life and leave me alone. If you have allegations against me, put them out in the open instead of spreading them behind my back. Stop assassinating my character and breaching my privacy. I find it shocking that Shaswat and his girlfriend, who I was friends with, wouldn’t think twice before reading my private conversations, going through my suitcase, listening to my calls or invading my personal space. I could understand if someone else did this, but imagine being betrayed in such demeaning ways by people you considered friends.”
She also accused them of taking her spots at stand-up gigs and tampering with her videos and audio recordings before she could release them. Abhishek Upmanyu, Urooj Ashfaq and Shashwat Maheshwari are yet to respond to the allegations.
