Tejpal case: How politics is holding justice to ransom

Is the politicisation of the Tehelka case deflecting attention from Tejpal's dreadful crime?

Goa recorded 51 cases of rape in 2012. For how many of those innocent women, violated of their basic human dignity in the most gruesome manner did Manohar Parrikar hold two animated press conferences?

 

The alacrity with which the BJP has jumped on the Tehelka sexual assault case has led to allegations that the party has showed undue interest in and is interfering with police proceedings to vent reprisal against Tarun Tejpal.

BJP’s intense protests outside Tejpal and managing editor Shoma Chaudhury’s house on Thursday have further fuelled fire that the opposition party is acting out of a personal vendetta against the organisation that has been left in tatters with Tejpal’s arrest imminent and employees, including Chaudhury, tendering their resignations. BJP leader Vijay Jolly has defaced the nameplate at Chaudhury’s residence and said he would do it a hundred times over.

 

“My head hangs in shame. She (Chaudhury) did not stand up in support of her woman colleague and for the past one week she has been trying to suppress the complaint and facts in the case."  Jolly was quoted as saying by PTI.

 

The BJP has officially condemned Jolly’s act, but for the sake of justice for the victim, Tejpal’s assault on the girl and his past assaults on the party must not be clubbed. It is entirely regrettable that the focus of the case has shifted from the dreadful harassment of the girl, which must be dealt with in isolation and devoid of any motives attached, to the BJP’s unusual vitality in attacking the Tehelka management.

 

The big danger, as this saga turns into a game of political wrangling and settling of old feuds, is that it is directly feeding into Tejpal’s assertion in his bail plea that the entire episode was a political conspiracy by the BJP. Tejpal has very cleverly linked his present troubles with the law to the acrimonious battles Tehelka has fought in the past – over sensational stings like the one against former BJP president Bangaru Laxman that showed him taking a bribe of Rs 1 lakh, as well as several exposés on the Godhra riots. 

 

“The bias of BJP against the Petitioner is a well known fact and has earlier been nastily manifested in a manner in which Tehelka was targeted post its expose on corrupt defence deals in 2001  and was forced to shut down operations for over 3 years as well as many of its employees being implicated in false criminal cases...”

 

“The wrath of leaders of BJP against the Present Applicant, whom the Goa Police cannot antagonize, is best manifested from the statements made by them demanding that the Applicant should"atone in jail." Some have even alluded to Tehelka's first sting operation which resulted in the resignation of the then BJP President, Bangaru Laxman, suggesting it was now payback time...”

 

These are paragraphs from Tejpal’s bail plea (he has subsequently been issued with a non-bailable warrant). By wreaking havoc and vandalising property, is the BJP not adding force to his claims?

The Congress too has repeatedly mixed up matters in this case, by saying it has found no material difference between Modi’s stalking scandal and the Tehelka issue, as both were violations of women’s rights.

The sexual assault of the young journalist turned unabashedly into a full blown political slugfest between the government and the opposition on Wednesday, after BJP leader Sushma Swaraj alleged that a Congress “minister” was shielding the magazine’s founder. Kapil Sibal dared her to name the “minister”, accusing the BJP of getting back at him for targeting Narendra Modi.

The latest salvo from the Congress stable seems to have come from Digvijay Singh, who was quoted by Dainik Bhaskar as saying that the government had “strangulated” Tehelka for a sting operation conducted in the past.

 

Unfortunately, as politicians exchange barbs and the BJP takes law and order in its own hands, the victim herself has been forgotten and so has the compassion and sensitivity that was expected out of our netas to deal with a heinous assault on a woman’s body. The minimal expectation now is that this battle of egos and personal disputes doesn’t end up deflecting more attention than it already has from the real crime which is of a much more serious nature than political score settling.

 

If that happens, it would be a travesty of justice, the 2nd time, as far as the victim is concerned.