#MeToo: India Today anchor falls prey to allegation of sexual harassment

NP NEWS 24 ONLINE- #MeToo is stemming its roots deep in the society and many such cases of sexual harassment are coming forward by the campaign. Many secrets which were dug in past are being revealed in which many celebrities like Nana Patekar have been alleged of such crimes till now.

Recently, anchor of India Today, Gaurav Sawant was accused of sexual harassment by Vidya Krishnan, a former health editor at ‘The Hindu’ of New Delhi. Although the anchor has denied all the allegations against him by a tweet claiming it to be false and baseless and that he will take a legal action on it.

According to Vidya, the incident took place in year 2003 when she was 21 and used to work for The Pioneer covering an assignment of peacetime drill at military station, Beas, Punjab as a trainee journalist. The team included many journalists including Gaurav.
Gaurav was seen as mentor and guide by Vidya as he was a lecturer in her college.

According to the allegations by Vidya, Gaurav touched him inappropriately during their field visit. She recalled and narrated the whole story in which she told, “The only thing I do remember about those few hours is constantly readjusting and trying to sit in a way that no one else makes out that this is happening.”

She added, “I remember checking constantly, ‘When are we going to reach — are we there yet, are we there yet”. Later Gaurav allegedly sent her inappropriate text messages and attempted to force himself on her many a times.

She recalled, “I started screaming … I think there was some sense of decency where he was like, ‘Okay, I can’t rape her’, so he went away at that point”.

Later she called her boyfriend and narrated her the story because of which he told her to stay out of trouble.

She kept on, “This is not about outright sexual assault, this is about how we treat women in these workplaces, it’s the everyday sexism” Krishnan said. “It makes me furious that we have very smart, young female reporters — with good talent — whom we don’t groom because we look at them as objects. And no amount of seniority fixes it, because no matter how up you go in the food chain, there are more men higher up on that very food chain at that very level.”

Also, Kanika Gahlaut former weekend editor of Hindustan Times has also tweeted against the anchor supporting Vidya, she said that on finding her smoking in a corner he lunged on her.