Tejpal seeks anticipatory bail in Sexual assault case, Arundhati Roy slams

Tahelka’s former Editor-in-Chief Tarun Tejpal who had stepped down after being accused of sexually assaulting a lady journalist, moved the Delhi High Court seeking an anticipatory bail. The Court will give its order on Tuesday. The lady journalist has resigned from the Tahelka magazine on Monday stating its not possible for her to continue working there.

Meanwhile Booker Prize winning author Arundhati Roy criticised Tarun Tejpal for sexually assaulting a woman journalist.

“This is Rape Number Two: the rape of the values and the politics that Tehelka claims it stands for, and an affront to those who work there and who have supported it in the past. It is the hollowing out of the last vestiges of integrity, political as well as personal,” Arundhati Roy wrote in her blog.

“The evidence against Tarun suggests that he has grievously sexually assaulted a young colleague of his during the ‘ThinkFest’, an ‘intellectual’ carnival run by him in Goa. The ThinkFest was sponsored by a consortium of Mining Corporations, some who are themselves accused of misdeeds on a gargantuan scale. Ironically, in other parts of the country the sponsors of ThinkFest have contributed to creating a climate in which scores of adivasi women have been raped and murdered, and thousands of people have been imprisoned as well as killed. Several lawyers have said that according to the new law, the nature of Tarun’s sexual assault amounts to rape. Tarun himself has admitted to his crime in his own emails and text messages to the woman he assaulted. From his position of uncontested power as her boss, he then loftily apologized to her, and then in an act that can only be described as delusionary, announced his own punishment-six months of leave in order to “lacerate” himself,” she added.

“Now that it has become a police matter, on the advice of fat cat lawyers whose services only the very rich can afford, Tarun begun to do what many men accused of rape do-vilify the woman he preyed on and call her a liar. Outrageously, it is being suggested that Tarun is being ‘framed’ for political reasons-presumably by the Right-wing Hindutva brigade. So now a young woman who he very recently saw fit to employ, is not just a loose woman, but an agent of the fascists? This is Rape Number Two: the rape of the values and the politics that Tehelka claims it stands for, and an affront to those who work there and who have supported it in the past,” she further wrote.

• About the Author

About Sprightly Spirit

“I dare do all that may become a man. Who dares more is none”. And all, may be. It may be the vigor. Or the spirit. Or the courage to avoid being “politically correct” or bent. And, ban all averse with immaculate overture of graciously fathomable words firm in views. Subtle. Justifying the undying conscience. Values. Knowledge. And, dares to stay true. True to own. True to the world. And, to the words. With a dream in eyes it exists. In you. In me. In all. The sprite that never shies away. The spirit that never dies!