Bhubaneswar: The State Commission for Women (SCW) on Wednesday asked a vernacular daily to furnish details of a story published against noted litterateur Haraprasad Das, accusing him of sexual harassment.
The accusation by a Kalahandi-based female writer and teacher had embarrassed the literary fraternity of Odisha.
On Tuesday, a group of civil society members urged the SCW to start a suo motto investigation into the matter.
According to reports, the female teacher had shared screenshots of chats with Das on Facebook to draw the attention of some fellow writers. In the chat, Das had sent indecent messages late in the night.
“I started chatting with him on Facebook messanger in April. After a few days, he started messaging me late in the night. He even asked me to send selfies and whether I was sleeping alone. He even called me on video call, which I did not receive,” said the accuser.
After she approached SCW on Monday, many felt that the 72-year-old writer should be unmasked to save the whole fraternity.
“Such an allegation against a senior poet is unfortunate. Though it is too early to draw any conclusion, there seems to have some truth in the whole matter,” said Editor of Sambad Soumya Ranjan Patnaik.
Dad, however, had dubbed the allegation as ‘false’ and ‘fabricated’. He has been inactive in Facebook for a long time and it could be a ‘hacker’s job’.
“This could be the handiwork of some hacker as I have been inactive on Facebook for a long time,” he said.
Following the incident, several women writers have come forward with similar allegations against Das.
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