Tehelka founder Tarun Tejpal at Delhi airport
New Delhi:
Tehelka founder Tarun Tejpal, accused of raping a younger colleague, surfaced at the Delhi airport today, where he told reporters that he is flying to Goa to be interrogated by the state police. He then boarded a 2:30 pm flight.
A court in Goa is hearing his request for bail. Till the decision is announced, it has said he cannot be arrested.
"I got the summons yesterday. So I am going to Goa," Mr Tejpal said at the airport, in his first public appearance since the Goa Police filed its case against him.
This morning, teams from the Goa and Delhi police searched for him at his Delhi residence and at the homes of friends and relatives, but were not able to locate him.
The senior journalist, who stepped down as Tehelka's editor-in-chief last week, is accused of raping a younger reporter at an annual Tehelka conference in Goa earlier this month.
Mr Tejpal has denied the charges of rape against him, and said that the encounter was "light hearted bantering." He has also said that the BJP, which is in power in Goa, has engineered the case against him as retribution for Tehelka's exposes on the party's top leaders. The Congress has backed that suggestion; the BJP has said Mr Tejpal has close links to senior Congress leaders who are trying to protect him. (Read: Only "light-hearted bantering" not sexual assault, says Tarun Tejpal)
The reporter at the centre of the case today challenged allegations that her complaint is "part of a pre-election political conspiracy." She cautioned that by infusing politics into the mix, parties are in danger of detracting from "a very important discussion about gender, power and violence." (Tehelka case: What Tejpal did to me is legally rape, she says in statement)
The journalist quit Tehelka earlier this week and accused her boss, Shoma Chaudhury, of trying to engineer a cover-up for Mr Tejpal.
Ms Chaudhury resigned yesterday as Tehelka's Managing Editor.
A court in Goa is hearing his request for bail. Till the decision is announced, it has said he cannot be arrested.
"I got the summons yesterday. So I am going to Goa," Mr Tejpal said at the airport, in his first public appearance since the Goa Police filed its case against him.
This morning, teams from the Goa and Delhi police searched for him at his Delhi residence and at the homes of friends and relatives, but were not able to locate him.
The senior journalist, who stepped down as Tehelka's editor-in-chief last week, is accused of raping a younger reporter at an annual Tehelka conference in Goa earlier this month.
Mr Tejpal has denied the charges of rape against him, and said that the encounter was "light hearted bantering." He has also said that the BJP, which is in power in Goa, has engineered the case against him as retribution for Tehelka's exposes on the party's top leaders. The Congress has backed that suggestion; the BJP has said Mr Tejpal has close links to senior Congress leaders who are trying to protect him. (Read: Only "light-hearted bantering" not sexual assault, says Tarun Tejpal)
The reporter at the centre of the case today challenged allegations that her complaint is "part of a pre-election political conspiracy." She cautioned that by infusing politics into the mix, parties are in danger of detracting from "a very important discussion about gender, power and violence." (Tehelka case: What Tejpal did to me is legally rape, she says in statement)
The journalist quit Tehelka earlier this week and accused her boss, Shoma Chaudhury, of trying to engineer a cover-up for Mr Tejpal.
Ms Chaudhury resigned yesterday as Tehelka's Managing Editor.
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