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A senior editor of a large US-based press house accused the former Union minister, MJ Akbar, of having raped her in India 23 years ago , claiming that the "brilliant journalist" had served his position as editor of a newspaper to take it to her, an allegation denied by her lawyer.
Akbar, 67, who resigned from the cabinet of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's union in October after several women said that he had been sexually harassed, started criminal proceedings for defamation against one of the men. among them during the #MeToo campaign in India.
The latest allegation of rape was brought against him by Pallavi Gogoi, editor-in-chief of the economic division of National Public Radio (NPR), a US-based media organization based in Washington.
She detailed the "most painful memories" of her life in a Washington Post article.
Akbar's attorney, Sandeep Kapur, said: "My client states that these allegations are false and expressly denied".
Gogoi said that Akbar, editor of the Asian Age newspaper at the time, was a brilliant journalist but was using his post to take it to her.
"What I'm going to share are the most painful memories of my life, I've stowed them for 23 years," she explained, explaining how Akbar had harassed her physically and mentally for years then that she worked for the Asian Age newspaper from New Delhi Mumbai to Jaipur in London.
Gogoi stated that she was 22 years old when she entered Asiatic age. She was hit by a star working under Akbar. She was fascinated by her use of language, her turn of phrase and took all the verbal abuse.
At 23, Gogoi became the editor of the opinion page, an important responsibility from an early age, she said.
"But I would soon pay a very big price for a job I loved.
"It was surely late spring or summer of 1994, and I had entered his office, his door was often closed.I went to show him the page of opinion that I had created with what I thought were clever titles.He applauded my efforts.and suddenly rushed to kiss.I staggered.I got out of the office, red face. confused, ashamed, destroyed, "she said.
The second incident took place a few months later, when she was summoned to Mumbai to launch a magazine, she said.
"He summoned me to his room at the Taj hotel, where he found accommodations." When he approached again to kiss me, I fought against him. he and I pushed him away, he scratched my face as I fled, tears flowing That night, I explained the scratches to a friend saying that I had slipped and dropped at the hotel, "she wrote in the Post.
Upon her return to Delhi, Akbar threatened to fire her if she resisted him again. But she did not leave the newspaper, she said.
A story took her to an isolated village a few hundred kilometers from Delhi and the mission was to end in Jaipur. When she came back, Akbar said that she could come to discuss the story at her hotel in Jaipur, she said.
"In his hotel room, even though I fought him, he was physically more powerful, he tore and raped me," she said, adding that Instead of denouncing him to the police, she was filled with shame.
"At that time, I did not tell anyone, would anyone believe it?" I blamed myself, "Gogoi said.
Gogoi claimed that Akbar 's take on her was tightened. For a few months, he continued to stain her sexually, verbally, emotionally. He would run amok in the newsroom if he saw her talking to male colleagues. It was scary.
"I can not explain today how and why he exercised such power over me, why I was falling in. Was it because I was afraid of losing my job? I just know that I hated myself then And I was dying a little every day, "she said. .
She said she was still looking for reporting assignments that would take her far.
Gogoi recalled covering the elections of December 1994. For his excellent work, Akbar said he would send it either to the United States or to the United Kingdom as a reward.
"I thought that eventually the abuses would cease because I would be far from the Delhi office, except that the truth was that he was sending me back so that I could no longer defend myself and that he could take me to every time he visited the city, "she says.
Gogoi alleged that Akbar had one day been enraged in the London office after seeing her talking to a colleague. He hit her and broke loose, throwing a pair of scissors or anything that came to hand. She escaped and hid in Hyde Park.
"I was in tatters emotionally, physically, mentally," she said.
Akbar again summoned her to Mumbai, after which she left office and joined Dow Jones in New York.
"Today, I am an American citizen, I am a wife and a mother, I have found my love for journalism, I have resumed my life, room by room. my perseverance and my talent have led from Dow Jones to USA Today Business Week, Associated Press and CNN, I am now leader at National Public Radio and I know I do not have to give in to the assault to get a job and succeed.
"Over the years, I have not talked about Akbar in conversations, I've always thought that he was above the law and that justice does not happen." I did not apply to him – I thought he'd never pay the price for what he'd done, "she said.
He called these allegations "unfounded and savage" and filed a lawsuit against one of the reporters who spoke, she said.
"It does not surprise me that he believes he has the right to create his own version of the" truth "today, just as he felt entitled to have our body at the time," added Gogoi.
(This story has not been changed by Business Standard staff and is generated automatically from a syndicated feed.)
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