Usbased journalist alleges Akbar raped her 23 yrs ago, he calls it ‘consensual’

NEW DELHI: Editor-turned-politician MJ Akbar, who recently resigned as a Union minister after more than a dozen women accused him of sexual harassment, has now been accused by a Us-based journalist of raping her in India 23 years ago.

Akbar has dismissed the allegations as false, calling it a “consensual relationship”.

In a separate statement issued to a news agency, Akbar’s wife Mallika Akbar, too, dismissed the fresh accusations as a “lie”.

Mallika further insisted that the two journalists who had accused her husband of sexual harassment, would often be at their house, “happily drinking and dining with us”.

“Neither carried the haunted look of victims of sexual assault... I don’t know (her) reasons for telling this lie but a lie it is,” Mallika said in her first public statement since over 20 former colleagues of her husband came out with their versions of abuse by him. Akbar has sued one of them for defamation.

The journalist wrote in a Washington Post column published Friday that Akbar “ripped off my clothes and raped me” in a hotel room in India 23 years ago.

Both she and Akbar were colleagues in The Asian Age newspaper. In the article, she narrated a detailed account of several incidents of rape and sexual assault by Akbar, the then editor-in-chief of the paper, as “the most painful memories of my life”. She alleged Akbar once hit her over speaking to a male colleague. CHENNAI: In a major relief to Congress leader P Chidambaram, the Madras High Court on Friday quashed criminal prosecution against his family members in a black money case, holding that no such offence was made out against them. The Income Tax Department had given its sanction for the prosecution of former Union minister’s wife Nalini, son Karti and daughter-in-law Srinidhi under the Black Money Act.

According to the tax department, Karti had not disclosed his bank account in Metro Bank, the UK, and investments he had made in Nano Holdings LLC, USA.