Washington
A US-based editor of a leading media house has accused former Union minister MJ Akbar of raping her in India 23 years ago, saying the “brilliant journalist” used his position as the editor-in-chief of a newspaper to prey on her, an allegation denied by his lawyer.

Akbar, 67, who resigned in October after multiple women came out with accounts of alleged sexual harassment, has filed a criminal defamation case against one of them amid the raging #MeToo campaign in India.

The latest allegation of rape was levelled against him by Pallavi Gogoi, the chief business editor of National Public Radio, a Washington-based American media organisation. She has detailed the “most painful memories” of her life in an article in The Washington Post. Akbar’s lawyer Sandeep Kapur said: “My client states that these are false and expressly denied.” Gogoi said she was 22 when she joined Asian Age and was star-struck working under Akbar. At 23, Gogoi became the editor of the op-ed page, which was a big responsibility at a young age, she said.

“But I would soon pay a very big price for doing a job I loved. In 1994, I had gone into his office… to show him the op-ed page. 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 hotel, again to see the layouts. When he again came close to me to kiss me, I 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, she alleged, adding that she did not quit. One story took her to a remote village 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.