Goa cops knock on Tehelka’s doors to begin probe

NEW DELHI: A three-member team of the Goa Crime Branch police reached Delhi on Saturday and began a probe into the sexual assault case involving Tarun Tejpal, the former editor of the Tehelka magazine. An official said the victim had agreed to cooperate with the probe and will give them a statement.

The Goa police, the official said, is looking to make the case stronger by getting the victim to make a statement before a magistrate possibly next week to make it a legally admissible piece of evidence.

So far, the case lodged by the police on charges of rape and outraging modesty against Tejpal rests on the complaint of a woman inspector of the Goa crime branch. The team spoke to Tehelka managing editor Shoma Chaudhury at the Tehelka office in the evening.

The police wants to seize several documents pertinent to the case, including a series of emails exchanged between the victim, Tejpal and Chaudhury as well as computers used by Chaudhury and Tejpal for exchanging these emails. Chaudhury said she would cooperate with police.

The police is still to meet Tejpal. Meanwhile, the victim told NDTV that on the night of November 22, a member of Tejpal’s immediate family came to her mother’s house in New Delhi and sought to protect Tejpal.

The person, she said, demanded to know who she was seeking legal help from and what she “wanted” as the result of “my complaint of sexual molestation by Tejpal”. “This visit has placed tremendous pressure on my family and at an intensely traumatic time,” she said.