In the ongoing #MeToo movement where women are coming out and naming their sexual harasser, especially at the workplace by men or women in power, the latest to be named is The Wire journalist Vinod Dua. In a Facebook post, filmmaker Nishtha Jain has accused Vinod Dua of stalking her and sexually abusing her.
Narrating an incident from 1989, Jain says that as a new graduate from Jamia Mass Communication Centre, she was interviewing with Dua for his new show, a political satire. She claims that even before she could settle down for the interview, Dua told a lewd, sexual joke. She felt uncomfortable, angry. When Dua asked her expectations for the salary, she quoted an amount most graduates at that time were getting, Rs. 5,000. To that, Dua, according to her, asked her, “Tumhari aukat kya hai?” After the humiliation, she left and later on got a job at Newstrack.
Jain says Dua would know when she was working late and one day she saw him in the parking lot and asked her to get in the car as he wanted to talk. She assumed he wanted to apologise for his behaviour, where he had earlier humiliated her. However, when she got into the car, he accuses him of “slobbering” all over her face. She got out of his car and ran to the office car and left. She claims she again spotted him the parking lot, but she managed to avoid him. Sometime later, he stopped doing this, she claims.
Jain called out Dua’s stand on the #MeToo movement and called him hypocritical when he outraged against actor Akshay Kumar for his sexist remark against his daughter Mallika Dua, where he said he would ‘screw this cretin’.
“He should stop everything and look into his own shady past. I saw him on a thread which was expressing outrage the false accusations against Varun Grover. I could see what his mind was cooking up when stories against him spill out. I won’t be surprised if he denies. He’s always been an opportunist. Sorry, Malika Dua, your father is also one who belongs to the hall of shame. #MeToo.” Jain said in her Facebook post.
In the course of the last few days, two women came forward and accused The Wire’s co-founder and founding editor Siddharth Bhatia of sexual harassment. The #MeToo movement on social media has taken the country by a storm with many big industry names like Alok Nath, Rajat Kapoor, Varun Grover and comedians like Tanmay Bhat and Gursimran Khamba, co-founders of All India Bakchod being accused of sexual misconduct. Journalists like Prashant Jha and film director Vikas Bahl and many, many more have been named as perpetrators of harassment.