Journalism of Courage
On Thursday,BJPs Vijay Jolly said he couldnt restrain his urge to blacken former Tehelka managing editor Shoma Chaudhurys nameplate. On Friday,party spokesperson Meenakshi Lekhi,in a tweet,partially revealed the identity of the magazines journalist who was allegedly sexually assaulted by Tarun Tejpal.
Under Section 228 A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC),disclosing the name or any matter which gives away the rape victims identity is punishable.
Lekhi,at the forefront of defending Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi in the alleged surveillance of a woman,revealed the last name of the complainant while trying to link it to two other incidents that had provoked media attention.
By evening,the post was withdrawn from Lekhis Twitter handle. Within a minute,I realised the mistake and removed the post, Lekhi said when contacted by The Indian Express . It was only partial (revealing the identity) and inadvertent, she added.
Less than an hour later,however,Lekhi called back The Indian Express with what she called her official reaction in which she distanced herself from her tweet. It was not tweeted by me. My phone was misused, she said.
This is mischievous, she added. No one is more familiar with the law than me as I have been at the forefront of the evolution of these laws (against sexual harassment). The insidiousness is apparent by the tweet and subsequent taking of the photoshot of it and deleting it. I had left the phone in my car. I am taken by surprise that somebody used my phone to make a tweet and deleted it subsequently and only later I was informed through you that my phone was misused for this, Lekhi said.
She claimed that two days ago,there was an attempt to hack my Gmail account and in the past even my Facebook account was hacked and I had to get it corrected.
She called once again and said,Now I have tweeted,Need now to constantly peek les(t) there is a false tweet. Phone misused!
