Hyderabad: Mazher Hussain, the founder of Hyderabad-based NGO COVA, has been accused of sexually harassing human rights activist Ms Mari Marcel Thekaekara on a flight, the incident happened 18 years ago.
The victim narrated how Mazher touched her thighs inappropriately while she was asleep on a South African Airways Mumbai-Johannesburg flight, and he was slapped on the spot.
Mazher is a regular on the national circuit and has worked with Oxfam, Rajiv Gandhi Foundation and Ford Foundation. Mari Marcel Thekaekara shared her gut-wrenching story to an online magazine, she shared (verbatim), “I had boarded a South African Airways Mumbai-Johannesburg flight to cover the 2001 World Conference against Racism in Durban. I noticed a man in front stretching his leg into the aisle almost tripping the air hostess. Deliberately, twice. A common ploy with creepy male passengers. I contemplated telling him to behave. But exhaustion won. I couldn’t summon the energy.”
The lights went out. I was almost asleep. Suddenly, I felt a hand massaging my thigh. I sat up with a jolt. Was I dreaming? A nightmare? But no, the passenger in the seat in front of me had stretched his hand behind to rub my thigh. I screamed involuntarily.”
