Following an uproar on social networking websites, former editor of Tehelka magazine and rape accused Tarun Tejpal’s name was dropped from the list of invitees to the Times Of India Literature Fest on Monday.
Confirming the cancellation, columnist and senior journalist Bachi Karkaria tweeted, “We have asked Tarun Tejpal to drop out of the TOI Litfest. We’ve got a great program & we don’t want it hijacked by extraneous noise.”
Tejpal was accused of sexually assaulting a woman colleague in a five-star hotel in Goa on two occasions on November 7 and 8 last year during an event organised by his magazine. The woman journalist had claimed that Tejpal had raped in the elevator during ThinkFest, an annual conference organised by Tehelka.
Meanwhile, Tejpal’s filmmaker daughter Tiya and her cousin Karan are paying tribute to their late grandmother through an upcoming project. The project is an adaptation of Khushwant Singh’s novel ‘The Sunset Club’.
Their grandmother Shakuntala passed away in May this year in Goa due to cancer. After her death, Tejpal, who was in jail for alleged rape charges, was let out on bail.
