New Delhi: A US-based editor of a leading media house has accused former Union minister M.J. Akbar of raping her in India 23 years ago, saying he used his position as the editor-in-chief of a newspaper, The Asian Age, to prey on her, an allegation denied by his lawyer.
“Somewhere around 1994, Ms Pallavi Gogoi and I entered into a consensual relationship that spanned several months,” Akbar, who recently resigned as junior foreign minister following a spate of #MeToo allegations, said in a statement.
“This relationship (with Gogoi) gave rise to talk and would later cause significant strife in my home life as well. This consensual relationship ended, perhaps not on the best note,” he said.
In her statement, Mallika said she knew about the relationship.
“More than twenty years ago, Pallavi Gogoi caused unhappiness and discord in our home. I learned of her and my husband's involvement through her late night phone calls and her public display of affection in my presence. In her flaunting the relationship, she caused anguish and hurt to my entire family,” she said.
It’s a lie: Mallika
Mallika said she remained “silent” even though the MeToo campaign was “unleashed” against Akbar. But the article by Gogoi “forced” her “to step in” with what she knew to be true, she said.
“I don't know Pallavi's reasons for telling this lie but a lie it is,” Mallika added.
Referring to a party at their residence, Mallika said, “I have watched with mortification and pain as they danced close. I had confronted my husband at the time and he decided to prioritise his family.”
Akbar resigned on October 17 from the council of ministers after over 20 women colleagues levelled allegations of sexual harassment against him when he was a journalist. He has filed a criminal defamation case against one of them.
Mallika said Gogoi and another journalist, Tushita Patel, who has also alleged sexual misconduct by Akbar, often come to their residence. “Neither carried the haunted look of victims of sexual assault.
No duress: Akbar
Akbar said several people who worked with him knew about his relationship with Gogoi and at no stage did her behaviour give any one of them the impression that she was “working under, or in any way, under duress”.
“In the past few weeks, I have been subjected to a barrage of false and fabricated accusations, which I am now addressing,” he said.
In her article in the Washington Post, Gogoi detailing how Akbar physically and mentally harassed her for years.
The first assault
“It must have been late spring or summer of 1994, and I had gone into his office his door was often closed. I went to show him the op-ed page I had created with what I thought were clever headlines. He applauded my effort and suddenly lunged to kiss me. I reeled. I emerged from the office, red-faced, confused, ashamed, destroyed,” she alleged.
The second incident was a few months later when she was summoned to Mumbai to help launch a magazine, she claimed.
“He called me to his room at the fancy Taj hotel, again to see the layouts. When he again came close to me to kiss me, I fought him and pushed him away.
He scratched my face as I ran away, tears streaming down,” she wrote in the Post.
When she got back to Delhi, Akbar threatened to kick her out of the job if she resisted him again. But she didn't quit.
Horror in Jaipur
One story took her to a remote village a few hundred miles from Delhi and the assignment was to end in Jaipur. When she checked back, Akbar said she could come discuss the story in his hotel in Jaipur, she claimed.
“In his hotel room, even though I fought him, he was physically more powerful. He ripped off my clothes and raped me,” she alleged, adding that instead of reporting him to the police, she was filled with shame.
Gogoi claimed that Akbar’s grip over her got tighter. For a few months, he continued to defile her sexually, verbally, emotionally.
He would burst into loud rage if he saw her talking to male colleagues.
“I cannot explain today how and why he had such power over me, why I succumbed,” she said.
Foreign shores
She said as a reward for her work in the December 1994, Akbar said he would send her either to the US or the UK as a reward.
“I thought that finally, the abuse would stop because I would be far away from the Delhi office.
“Except the truth was that he was sending me away so I could have no defences and he could prey on me whenever he visited the city,” she said. Akbar later summoned her back to Mumbai after which she left the job.
