Mumbai: Former Tehelka Editor-in-Chief and founder Tarun Tejpal, accused of raping a junior female colleague, has been asked dropped from the Times of India Literary Festival after massive criticism.
Tejpal stepped down as the editor of Tehelka for six months after a junior colleague accused him of sexual assault in November 2013. He was arrested by Goa police in November 2013 and was subsequently granted bail by the Supreme Court in July 2014 after submitting his passport to the court.
Senior journalist and director of the festival Bachi Karkaria took to Twitter to clarify Times Of India’s stance on the issue.
“We have asked Tarun to drop out of the TOI Litfest. We’ve got a great program and we do not want it hijacked by extraneous noise,†she wrote.
Times of India took this decision after people hit out at them through social media platforms like Twitter and multiple articles that questioned their decision to invite Tejpal to speak in a panel titled ‘The Tyranny of Power’.
Tejpal was to share the stage with ‘Haider’ scriptwriter Basharat Peer and Congress member and former diplomat Mani Shankar Aiyar. The panel was to be chaired by Manu Joseph, a journalist.
This would have been Tejpal’s first public appearance after the scandal broke out in November 2013.