NEW DELHI – India’s fledgling #MeToo movement claimed its highest-profilescalp to date on Wednesday as a government minister and veteran editor quitafter at least 20 women accused him of sexual harassment.
M.J. Akbar, who became junior foreign minister in Prime Minister NarendraModi’s government after a glittering journalistic career, maintainedhowever that the barrage of allegations were false.
“Since I have decided to seek justice in a court of law in my personalcapacity, I deem it appropriate to step down from office and challengefalse accusations against me,” he said in a statement.
Allegations against Akbar snowballed last week after journalist PriyaRamani accused him of sexual harassment when the pair worked together inthe 1990s.
Akbar was “an expert on obscene phone calls, texts, inappropriatecompliments and not taking no for an answer,” Ramani had said.
She said that he would often insist on conducting interviews and meetingsin hotel rooms.
“As women we feel vindicated by M.J. Akbar’s resignation. I look forward tothe day when I will also get justice in court,” she said on Twitter onWednesday.
Akbar earlier dismissed Ramani’s accusations and said he would sue fordefamation.
But 20 other women have since offered to testify against him.
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Another woman said Akbar cornered and pawed her when she was a juniorreporter at the Asian Age newspaper in 1997.
“He ran his hands from my breast to my hips. I tried pushing his handsaway, but they were plastered on my waist,” wrote Ghazala Wahab on newswebsite The Wire.
“I ran out of his cabin and into the toilet to cry my eyes out,” addedWahab, who now works as executive editor of Force magazine.
A third accuser said Akbar had greeted her in his underwear after callingher to his hotel room and then forcibly kissed her.
“Suddenly you got up, grabbed me and kissed me hard — your stale teabreath and your bristly moustache are still etched in the recesses of mymemory,” journalist Tushita Patel wrote in an article for Scroll on Tuesday.
She said the incident dated back to 1992 when she was a trainee. – APP/AFP
