India #MeToo: Minister accused of multiple sexual harassment files for defamation

An Indian minister has slammed allegations of sexual misconduct leveled at him by at least 10 women as “lies” and has filed a lawsuit against the first one who accused him of harassment.

Junior Foreign Minister MJ Akbar, 67, filed a defamation suit against journalist Priya Ramani after she publicly accused him on Twitter of sexually harassing her.

Remaining silent on the allegations until he got back from a trip to Nigeria last week, the minister on Sunday blasted the allegations made against him by the group of women, branding them “false and fabricated.”

“Accusation without evidence has become a viral fever among some sections.

“Whatever be the case, now that I have returned, my lawyers will look into these wild and baseless allegations in order to decide our future course of legal action,” he said in a statement on Sunday.

Ramani was the first to level allegations of harassment against the minister when she claimed last Tuesday that Akbar was the same unnamed man she accused of harassment in an article for Vogue in 2017.

Since then, at least another dozen women have accused Akbar of sexual assault. They include journalist Suparna Sharma, who revealed to the Indian Express news site how “Akbar plucked my bra strap” and allegedly stared at her breasts.

Another tweeted:

Akbar, considered to have been one of India’s most influential editors as he oversaw the output of English-language newspapers The Telegraph and The Asian Age, is the most high profile figure to be named in what has been branded India’s belated #MeToo campaign. He became minister in 2016.

He suggested the “storm” of allegations may have been guided by political motivations as India braces for elections in the first half of 2019.

“Why has this storm risen a few months before a general election?” he asked. “Is there an agenda? You be the judge,” he said.

Commenting on the lawsuit, Ramani told the Indian Express Sunday that there is “no conspiracy” against him, before stressing the “great cost” at which she and the rest of the complainants came out.

Harinder Baweja, another woman who named Akbar as her abuser, tweeted his argument is “insane.”

India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, has not commented on the allegations, while BJP President Amit Shah has said the allegations would have to be investigated.

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