My job to sit back, believe more women: Jatin Das accuser

Entrepreneur-conservationist Nisha Bora, who has accused senior artist Jatin Das of sexual harassment, says she is happy to let more voices emerge, and that now her job is to sit back, pay attention and believe.

"Several women are speaking up, as you can see on Twitter. Several privately. Some on FB (Facebook). At the moment, I'm happy to just let the voices emerge till they grow into their own crescendo.

"When I had begun, I had not expected so many women to speak up. Now, my job is to sit back and listen, pay attention and believe," the 42-year-old told IANS.

Bora, co-founder of Elrhino Paper, an Assam-based organisation that makes hand-made paper from rhinoceros and elephant dung, said she had met Das in 2004 at India International Centre when she was 28, and had been married for less than a year.

She, on Tuesday, accused the Padma Bhushan recipient of sexually harassing her at his Khidki village studio in 2004, which Das has refuted as "ridiculous and vulgar".

"I visited Jatin in his studio, which was in Khidki village... The next thing I knew, he attempted to grab me. I wriggled out of his embrace, flustered. Then he did it again. This time, he managed a clumsy kiss on my lips," Bora tweeted.

"I recall the feeling of his beard on my skin. I pushed him away, and moved away from him. At that moment he said, 'Come on, it would be nice.' Or something like that...

"I worked myself into a hole believing that talking about it would make trouble... I felt that somehow I landed myself into this spot and that it was my problem to deal with. I felt guilty and ashamed," she had written.

Das, however, denied the allegations and had called them "ridiculous and vulgar", adding he did not even know Bora.

--IANS

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