Media: Former employee calls out Skyesports for inappropriate behaviour

Former Skyesports assistant project coordinator, Mrinal “Jollies” Baranwal has taken to X to reveal disturbing details about her time working with Skyesports, detailing inappropriate work behaviour involving the top brass of Skyesports, including CEO and founder, Shiva Nandy.

Skyesports is a prominent Indian tournament organisers, who has been hosting various Counter-Strike tournaments and are infamous for their various payment delays and tournament cancellations.

Jollies, recalling a disturbing series of events, has stated that she has quit her job at Skyesports after repeated inappropriate behaviour from the senior management at Skyesports which included 'unwanted physical contact, suggestive remarks and boundary violations'. She also stated that despite raising these concerns to the HR, no action was taken.

Jollies has detailed down about how she joined Skyesports as Project Coordinator in February 2024 with the senior management including Shiva Nandy, CEO and Founder of Skyesports and Sashank Bhandaru, Head of Global Business Partnership at Skyesports, both had a friendly nature towards her. She states that she along with other girls would be taken to clubs, beaches and restaurants to talk about them adjusting into office and other projects. She has also mentioned that Bhandaru and Nandy, both are married and have children of their own. Bhandaru also, whilst being intoxicated, revealed to Jollies that he doesn't talk to her a lot because 'he very easily slips for badminton players (Jollies herself is a badminton player).

She talks about a particular incident where she flew with Nandy to Mumbai for a new game, to meet clients where Vijay Krishnan, Head of Esports at Skyesports, told Jollies to not pack loose clothes. Jollies spoke to her family as well, telling them about her apprehensiveness about the trip and her feeling not comfortable about the situation. On the trip, Nandy allegedly asked her to meet him in the lobby where he met her and asked to go to her room to drink. Nandy poured drinks for an extremely uncomfortable Jollies and himself and her keeping her guard up is said to have made Nandy upset which Krishnan relayed to Jollies.

Jollies also talks about how Nandy started asking personal questions to her about her marriage and relationship. Jollies also reveals that she was told "Well, we want to groom you so you could become the face of Skyesports. We don’t want to waste our time grooming you when you’re just going to get married and not be dedicated enough towards your career." She also mentions about inappropriate physical contact from Nandy, which even after Jollies tried to fend he continued to pursue. Jollies has also shared screengrabs of her chat with Krishnan, which includes personal details of his relation with another colleague which he would talk to Jollies about and also other personal details which made Jollies uncomfortable, including him asking her of her outfit details.

She reveals a harrowing incident which took place during Durga Puja 2024, which was the final nail in the coffin for her, where she was shocked to see Krishnan secretly take photos of Jollies without her consent from behind her, which was the final incident that made Jollies think about quitting Skyesports.

Jollies has also spoke about how Skyesports doesn't have an HR and the HR there is, is part of Skyesports' parent company, Jetsynthesys. Jollies reached out to the HR, who did not respond to her and took no actions against the complaints made by her except host a Prevention of Sexual Harassment (POSH) workplace seminar. Following Jollies revealing on X that she planned to expose all the details, she was instantly reached out to by the HR. She has said the following her announcing to make the details public, several people have reached out to her to settle the issues privately after being scared of getting called out.

And after my tweet yesterday, they tried to reach me indirectly to settle things privately. That is because they know they f’ed up. They know what they did. They know once I get my word out, their such preserved secrets will be out. They misused their power. They are the reason there are no female employees left in Sky (apart from the 4 locals). I understand how serious these allegations are; I have gone through it. No girl deserves this. While we preach equality, these people make sure that women only reach higher positions in exchange for their dignity. Esports and gaming is a progressive profession. But people like these bring back the same old prejudice. And the fact that these are all married men, and that too with children, makes me weep. As I end this rant, I feel disgusted as I re-lived all the situations, yet relieved that it is finally out. For all the women who were harassed, speak up; you’re not alone. I hope I can set an example for girls to take their stand against these so-called influential bullies. So this is it. I hope now it doesn’t get suppressed again.
Jollies' statement about why she went public and the prevalent issues that lie in the Indian gaming ecosystem

I waited for the right actions to be taken, but obviously HR swept it under the rug. This is unacceptable. The fact that men in power will exploit women like this is so shameful. We need strict actions taken against them.
Jollies' statement to Dust2 India

You can read in detail about Jollies' statement on Skyesports' behaviour here.

Dust2 India has reached out to Skyesports about their statement on the matter but has not received a reply at the time of publication.