{"id":3033,"date":"2018-10-20T15:43:33","date_gmt":"2018-10-20T10:13:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/34.22.110.190\/english\/?p=3033"},"modified":"2021-01-05T03:13:58","modified_gmt":"2021-01-04T21:43:58","slug":"i-dont-speak-to-the-media-aveek-sarkar-former-editor-in-chief-of-abp-on-sexual-harassment-complaints-against-his-employees-when-he-headed-the-newspaper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/i-dont-speak-to-the-media-aveek-sarkar-former-editor-in-chief-of-abp-on-sexual-harassment-complaints-against-his-employees-when-he-headed-the-newspaper\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cI don\u2019t speak to the media\u201d: Aveek Sarkar, former Editor-in-Chief of ABP on sexual harassment complaints against his employees when he headed the newspaper"},"content":{"rendered":"

The #Metoo movement has taken the country by storm. Several women have come out bravely with their stories about abuse and sexual harassment at the hands of their seniors at workplace.<\/p>\n

MJ Akbar, junior minister of external affairs stepped down on October 17 after several former women colleagues accused him of sexually harassing them and Akbar filing a criminal defamation suit against Priya Ramani, who named him for sexually misbehaving with her. Ramani was the first of the many women who spoke against him.<\/p>\n

In West Bengal, two #Metoo narratives were reported in The Bengal Story in which two former employees of Anandabazar Patrika<\/em> narrated the horror of not only being sexually harassed but also about the humiliation they faced when they reported the matter to their seniors and in the HR department.<\/p>\n

———————————————-<\/p>\n

Also read: #Metoo: A supreme power called Anandabazar Patrika that guillotines women everyday.<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

————————————————<\/p>\n

They alleged that neither senior colleagues nor the top bosses of the ABP group offered them support. According to the narratives of these two former woman employees of ABP, instead of taking action against the alleged harassers, ABP transferred one of the women and offered to transfer the other.<\/p>\n

Saberee Gupta, who made allegations<\/span><\/a> of sexual harassment against her then Chief Reporter Debdut Ghoshthakur, was transferred to a relatively less significant (as perceived by her) tabloid newsmagazine Ebela<\/em> which she did not want to take. She left the job after a month and a half.<\/p>\n

Pallavi Majumdar, who made allegations<\/span><\/a> of sexual harassment against her boss, the District Bureau Chief Sanjay Sikdar, wrote that she was asked to withdraw the complaint by the top boss in the newspaper. She left the job after a humiliating experience at a meeting.<\/p>\n

For both the #Metoo narratives, thebengalstory.com\/english got in touch with the persons named in both articles.<\/p>\n

We contacted Debdut Ghoshthakur, who reacted by saying, \u201cI completely deny. It is really unfortunate.\u201d We spoke with Ms Shiuli Biswas, who was in the company\u2019s HR department when Gupta went to her to make the allegation against Ghoshthakur.<\/p>\n

———————————————————<\/p>\n

Also read: #MetooIndia: My Chief Reporter Debdut Ghoshthakur sexually harassed me repeatedly, but Anandabazar Patrika did nothing. I was transferred instead.\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

—————————————————–<\/p>\n

On Saberee Gupta\u2019s allegations (published in the article on October 12), Biswas said: \u201cI cannot respond because one, I cannot recall the exact sequence of events the way you\u2019ve mentioned her narrative. Two, I am no longer part of the HR department. Three, it must have gone to the internal committee that handles sexual harassment and must be in the office records.<\/p>\n

So we got in touch with Suman Banerjee, who is now the company\u2019s HR head. He could not be contacted over phone despite repeated attempts. We sent him an email with the details, seeking his response. However, Banerjee hasn\u2019t responded yet.<\/p>\n

For Pallavi Majumdar\u2019s piece (published on October 15), we got in touch with Sanjay Sikdar, who did not respond. We got in touch with Banerjee again. We sent him an email stating the allegations. However, we have not heard from the ABP group yet. Hirak Bandopadhyay, the then News Editor mentioned by Majumdar in her piece was also contacted by us. Bandopadhyay said he would take some time to respond, but there has been no response from him so far.<\/p>\n

In her piece, Majumdar narrated her shocking experience of filing an official complaint against her boss, and then being called to the office of the top boss in the organisation who she alleged had asked her to withdraw the complaint.<\/p>\n

Therefore, we decided to call Aveek Sarkar, former Editor-in-chief of Anandabazar Patrika and The Telegraph. He is now Vice chairman and Editor Emeritus of the ABP Group. He was the Editor-in-chief when both women employees had made the allegations.<\/p>\n

But Sarkar\u2019s comment was, \u201cSorry, I don\u2019t speak to the media.\u201d<\/p>\n

We are still waiting to hear from Suman Banerjee, head of the ABP\u2019s HR department. We will update both stories when he responds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The #Metoo movement has taken the country by storm. Several women have come out bravely with their stories about abuse and sexual harassment at the hands of their seniors at workplace. MJ Akbar, junior minister of external affairs stepped down on October 17 after several former women colleagues accused him of sexually harassing them and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":279,"featured_media":3034,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,21],"tags":[],"tmauthors":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-3033","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-bengal","8":"category-gender"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3033","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/279"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3033"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3033\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3034"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3033"},{"taxonomy":"tmauthors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tmauthors?post=3033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}