Editor in India, known for corruption inquiries, is accused of rape

New Delhi: The police in the coastal state of Goa filed charges of rape and sexual assault Friday against Tarun Tejpal, the editor of a liberal-minded magazine that has influenced a generation of young Indian journalists with its exposes of corruption and abuse of power.

The police are expected to interview Tejpal on Saturday, and they say they have footage from surveillance cameras of what happened. Kishan Kumar, the director general of police in Goa, where the attack is alleged to have taken place a week ago, would not say whether Tejpal would be arrested.

"Let us leave it to investigating officers," Kumar said at a news conference. "It is a process under law which has logical consequences."

The case burst into view Thursday, when the magazine's managing editor, Shoma Chaudhury, sent an announcement to her staff that "there has been an untoward incident" and that Tejpal had apologized and would "recuse himself" for six months. A remorseful letter from Tejpal, which was leaked to other publications, described "a bad lapse of judgment, an awful misreading of the situation."

An account posted on a social media site shortly afterward, evidently written by the victim, described two episodes of assault that took place when she was cornered in a hotel elevator.

Many journalists and activists fumed over Chaudhury's treatment of the episode as an internal matter, especially because the magazine, Tehelka, has pushed for Indian society to confront hidden cases of sexual violence.

The matter swiftly took on political significance because of Tehelka's institutional stature. The magazine's investigations have captured senior officials who were taking bribes or consorting with prostitutes, ending political careers. An investigation in Gujarat implicated state officials, including the chief minister, Narendra Modi, in sectarian riots that took place there in 2002.

The young woman has not made a complaint to the police, but officials in Goa said the account on social media had provided evidence of a crime.

"I am not saying someone is guilty, but the girl's email is explicit," the chief minister of Goa, Manohar Parrikar, said Friday, according to The Times of India.

Tejpal defended himself Friday, urging the police to examine footage from the security camera in the elevator "so that the accurate version of events stands clearly revealed." He said he had apologized at the insistence of Chaudhury, "as desired by the journalist," but that his apology did not reflect "the complete truth."

The investigation commanded extraordinary attention in journalistic and political circles, more accustomed to seeing Tejpal as the accuser than as the accused. Arun Jaitley, a leader of Modi's party, the Bharatiya Janata Party, argued Friday that Tejpal should be prosecuted, even if the woman does not complain to the police.

"A criminal offense is a crime against a victim. It is also a crime against society," Jaitley wrote on Facebook. "This is precisely why the state pursues a criminal action. The public exchequer pays for it. There is a larger public interest in punishing a criminal."

Some of the toughest criticism Friday came from colleagues of Tejpal and Chaudhury, who said journalists bear an extra burden to handle sexual assault cases transparently. Siddharth Varadarajan, former editor of the newspaper The Hindu, wrote that the case offered "unsettling insight" into why a public discussion of rape prompted by a brutal attack in December had not led to a decrease in sexual violence.

"The disturbing answer is because the friends, relatives and colleagues of men accused of violence against women are often prepared to make excuses for the perpetrators. Or to find some way to minimize the enormity of the crime," he wrote in an essay on the website of NDTV. "Allowing Tejpal to 'atone' for what he has been accused of doing is part of the same process of erasure." (Read: Op-ed - Why Tehelka's response is wrong at so many levels)