New Delhi: The list of women who have accused Junior External Affairs Minister M J Akbar of sexual harassment and misconduct has gone up by one more, taking the total to 12. On Monday, October 15, another woman journalist accused the minister and former senior journalist or sexual impropriety.
The woman, identified as Tushita Patel, worked with Akbar for the Deccan Chronicle. She recounted three separate incidents where the minister allegedly called her under the pretext of discussing work and then harassed and forcibly kissed her.
Patel spoke about these alleged incidents in an open letter published on the news portal Scroll.
When she was only 22 and working with the Telegraph in Kolkata, she elaborates in her letter, Akbar had called her at her home several times, asking her to meet him at his hotel as he was in the city.
She finally gave in and went to meet him, only to be greeted by the sight of him “dressed only in underwear.”
“I stood at the door, stricken, scared and awkward… Does greeting a 22-year-old in a state of undress pass your test of morality? Is that not ‘doing’ something?”, she wrote.
She recounted two more incidents that occurred a year later, when she had joined the Deccan Chronicle, where Akbar was the editor-in-chief. She alleged that he had, on two separate occasions, grabbed her and forcibly kissed her-once at his hotel and again in the office’s conference room, despite her attempts to avoid him.
“Defeated, humiliated, blinded by hurt and tears, I stayed in that room till I stopped crying. I waited till he had left the building, went to the bathroom, washed my face and carried on to finish my page,” she continued.
There have been many calls for the minister to step down. He has, however, denied all allegations and has even decided to take legal action against Priya Ramani, the first woman who accused him of sexual harassment. He continues to claim that the allegations are a political conspiracy ahead of the Lok Sabha elections.
