NEW DELHI: A young woman resigned yesterday from a top Indian investigative news magazine, which is at the centre of a sex scandal after her boss allegedly assaulted her, reports said.
The woman, quoted by the Press Trust of India new agency, said she resigned from Tehelka to be “free from any kind of pressure” as its employee.
Two other employees, witnesses in the case against Tehelka editor-in-chief Tarun Tejpal, also resigned yesterday, sources said.
Sources said the journalist from Mumbai sent her resignation letter through e-mail to managing editor Shoma Chaudhury. The two witnesses who put in their papers are Shougat Dasgupta and Ishan Tankha.
Goa Police camped in Delhi for two days and collected Chaudhury’s computer Central Processing Unit (CPU), laptop and iPad along with Tejpal’s computer CPU. They also seized the joining and transfer letters of the victim. The team returned to Goa on Sunday afternoon.
The Mumbai-based journalist publicly pleaded with the magazine’s editor on Sunday to halt what she called intimidation and harassment.
She said a member of his family had visited her mother in New Delhi asking to “protect” him.
Police have begun investigating Tejpal after the woman claimed he sexually assaulted her twice in a hotel in the holiday state of Goa during a conference organised by the magazine last month.
Tejpal applied for interim anticipatory bail yesterday, denying the assault allegation and offering to cooperate with police. The bail plea is expected to be heard today.
Tehelka, which pioneered undercover sting operations in India, has been embroiled in the scandal since last week when it was leaked that Tejpal had offered to take six months’ leave for “misconduct”.
Tejpal, 50, is the founding editor of Tehelka.
In an email to staff of the New Delhi-based magazine, Tejpal admitted that “a bad lapse of judgement, an awful misreading of the situation, have led to an unfortunate incident that rails against all we believe in and fight for”.
Agencies
