Goa police return without quizzing Tehelka editor

DELHI: The Goa police team probing the alleged sexual assault case against Tehelka Editor Tarun Tejpal returned Sunday after questioning three employees of the magazine who had been contacted by the victim to corroborate her version as it seized a hard disc and documents.
Contrary to reports, the three-member police team, which had flown into Delhi from Panaji Saturday, left without questioning Tejpal.
The police had questioned Tehelka Managing Editor Shoma Chaudhury for around nine hours from 4:45 pm on Sunday to around 2 a.m. at the magazine’s office in posh Greater Kailash-II in South Delhi.
The investigating team took into custody the e-mail exchanges among Chaudhury, the woman journalist and Tejpal, a CPU, besides several documents. Other than that, Chaudhury’s mobile phone, an iPad and her laptop were also screened by the police, according to the sources.
Tejpal is likely to seek transfer of probe to an independent agency, according to sources.
Tejpal is likely to move court to seek the transfer of probe from Goa Police, which is investigating the case at present after lodging an FIR.
In a parallel development, National Commission of Women (NCW) has asked the Mumbai Police to provide security to the victim while stressing that the woman journalist should come forward and put her case firmly.
Earlier in the day, the Goa Crime Branch team led by Deputy Superintendent of Police Sammy Tavares recorded statements of the three colleagues of the victim with whom she had interacted soon after the alleged assault happened at a Goa hotel around a fortnight ago. She had also sent them copies of the e-mail, which she had sent to Chaudhury complaining about the alleged sexual assault by Tejpal.
Meanwhile, the victim has publicly pleaded with her editor to halt what she called intimidation and harassment.
In a statement to local media late Saturday, the woman said a member of Tejpal’s family had visited her mother’s house in New Delhi on Friday evening and asked her mother to “protect” the editor.
The relative also “demanded to know who I was seeking legal help from and what I wanted as the result of my complaint of sexual molestation by Mr.Tejpal,” the statement said.
The woman said the visit had placed “tremendous emotional pressure” on her family at an “intensely traumatic time.”
“I fear this may be the beginning of a period of further intimidation and harassment,” said the statement, carried on the front pages of several Indian newspapers on Sunday.
“I call upon all persons connected to Tejpal and his associates to refrain from approaching me or my family members,” the statement said.
Tejpal, 50, is the founding editor of Tehelka, known for its hard-hitting investigations into sexual violence against women and gender inequality, as well as into corruption and other law breaking.
With the media newly sensitized to sexual assault cases after a string of widely publicized gang-rape cases this year, the incident has been front-page news and the magazine has been accused of hypocrisy.
The fatal gang-rape of a student on a New Delhi bus last December touched off sometimes violent demonstrations and a long period of introspection in India about the treatment of women and rising crime against them.
In an e-mail to staff of the New Delhi-based magazine, Tejpal admitted that “a bad lapse of judgment, an awful misreading of the situation, have led to an unfortunate incident that rails against all we believe in and fight for.”
But Tejpal has denied the assault allegation and offered to cooperate with police.
As part of their preliminary investigation, police in Goa have sent a team to Delhi to question magazine staff and Tejpal.