What Tejpal did falls within legal definition of rape: Victim

The victim says she is heartened by the broad support she has received over the past fortnight.

Rejecting "insinuations" that her complaint is part of a pre-election political conspiracy, the victim of Tehelka Editor Tarun Tejpal's alleged sexual assault today said what he did to her "falls within the legal definition of rape".

In a statement ahead of Tejpal's journey to Goa to face police questioning, she said she was heartened by the broad support she has received over the past fortnight.

"However, I am deeply concerned and very disturbed by insinuations that my complaint is part of a pre-election political conspiracy," she said in a two-page statement.

Categorically refuting such insinuations, she put forward arguments to say what Tejpal did was rape.

While he was fighting to protect his wealth, influence and privilege, for her it was a fight to preserve nothing except "my integrity and my right to assert that my body is my own and not the plaything of my employer."

"Perhaps the hardest part of this unrelentingly painful experience has been my struggle with taxonomy. I don't know if I am ready to see myself as a "rape victim", for my colleagues, friends, supporters and critics to see me thus.

"It is not the victim that categorises crimes: it is the law. And in this case, the law is clear: what Mr Tejpal did to me falls within the legal definition of rape," the victim, a journalist in Tehelka, said. She has since resigned.