#MeToo India: 'M J Akbar plucked my bra strap', 'his thumbs rubbed sides of my breasts'; 7 women allege sexual harassment against Union Minister

#MeToo India: Suparna Sharma, the present Resident Editor of The Asian Age, and Ghazala Wahab, the executive editor of Force magazine, have now come on record to accuse M J Akbar of sexual harassment at workplace.

#MeToo India: Union Minister M J Akhbar has been accused by as many as 7 women journalists of sexual harassment. (AFP)

#MeToo India: Union Minister M J Akhbar has been accused by as many as 5 women journalists of sexual harassment and inappropriate behaviour when he worked as a newspaper editor. Recently two more women have spoken up against the Minister of State for External Affairs. According to the reports by the Indian Express, Suparna Sharma, the present Resident Editor of The Asian Age, Delhi, and Ghazala Wahab, the executive editor of Force magazine, have now come on record to accuse M J Akbar of sexual harassment at workplace. Woman No. 6 - Suparna Sharma Suparna Sharma told she reported to Akbar when she was the part of the launch team of the newspaper where she worked from 1993 to 1996. Recalling the horror, one day while she was making the page one of the paper, Akbar was 'standing behind' her. Suparna was quoted by the Indian Express as saying, “He plucked my bra strap and said something which I don’t remember now. I screamed at him.” She was in her early 20s when this incident took place. In another incident that happened a little later, when Suparna walked into Akbar's cabin at work, wearing a T-shirt with something written on it, he stared at her bosom and made her uncomfortable. "He stared at my breasts and then said something which I ignored," Suparna said. Suparna further alleged Akbar by saying that he pursued almost every woman in the same way. "Meetings in hotels, dangling plum assignments at them, sending them out of town and then arranging to meet them in a hotel, or insisting that they take a car ride with him. He mostly preyed on young women who lived alone, loved their jobs and were bright and ambitious," she said, reported IE. Woman No. 7 - Ghazala Wahab In a detailed account written for The Wire, the executive editor of Force magazine, Ghazala Wahab, described several instances where Akbar allegedly molested her. She said Akbar grabbed her, rubbed his body against hers and even forcefully kissed her in his office. According to Wahab when she worked with The Asian Age from 1994 to 1997 — where Akbar was founder-editor — he purposely made her sit opposite to him. "He would sit at his desk and watch me all the time, often sending me lewd messages on the Asian Age intranet network. Thereafter, emboldened by my obvious helplessness, he started calling me into his cabin (the door to which he would always shut) for conversation, most of which was personal in nature," she wrote in the account. "Sometimes, he would make me sit opposite him while he was supposedly writing his weekly column. The idea was that if he needed to look up a word in the gigantic dictionary placed on a low tripod on the far end of his cabin, he would ask me instead of walking across the room," she further wrote. “Once, in autumn of 1997, while I was half-squatting over the dictionary, he sneaked up behind me and held me by my waist. I stumbled in sheer fright while struggling to get to my feet. He ran his hands from my breast to my hips. I tried pushing his hands away, but they were plastered on my waist, his thumbs rubbing the sides of my breasts,” Wahab recalled the horrific incident.  All this while, she wrote, “the wily smile never left his face.” Her experience continued for six months. Wahab said every time Akbar called her into his cabin she wrote she “died a thousand times”. Wahab further wrote, that there came a point in Akbar’s office, when the Asian Age tarot card reader Veenu Sandal, who used to do a weekly column and had “become Akbar’s private astrologer” came to Wahab’s desk to tell her that Akbar was truly in love with her. "Since I continued to resist (in my limited way) his physical overtures, he fired another salvo to break my defences – Veenu Sandal, the Asian Age tarot card reader who used to do a weekly column. Over time, she had become Akbar’s private astrologer. After one particularly harrowing afternoon, when he shooed-off my protective colleague from his office so that he could paw me, Veenu came to my desk and told me that Akbar was truly in love with me. And that I should give him time to show me how much he cared." "I was disgusted at this animal. Could he be real? Can his sense of entitlement be so huge that he employs an astrologer to pimp for him? At that point, I was no longer sure of anything. What will happen if I continue to resist him? Will he rape me? Will he harm me? I considered going to the police, but got scared. What if he gets vengeful? I considered telling my parents, but I knew that would be the end of my barely-begun career," Wahab wrote. And one fine day when she gathered the courage to leave the company, Wahab wrote Akbar lost his balance. "After several sleepless nights, I figured that staying on in the Asian Age while looking for another job was no longer an option. That I must quit immediately. So, I mustered courage and told him that I was quitting. He lost his balance. He hollered while I cowered in my chair. Then he got all emotional and held me urging me not to leave him. I came out of his room shaking to the bones. This was turning into an unending nightmare which affected every aspect of my life. I lost my appetite. I lost my sleep. I lost my desire to hang out with my friends," Wahab wrote in her account. Congress asks MoS MJ Akbar to quit In the wake of the levelled charges of sexual harassment against Akbar by several women, Congress came in support of the #MeToo campaign on the social media. The Opposition party demanded the resignation of Minister of State for External Affairs MJ Akbar. The Congress also questioned the silence of External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on the matter.