Bhubaneswar: Noted litterateur Haraprasad Das, alleged of showing indecent approach to a lady teacher through facebook chats today moved court and lodged defamation case against eight people over the issue.
Citing the allegations of harassment levelled by a lady teacher from Kalahandi as unfortunate, Das filed a defamation suit against the editor, publisher of a news daily and some other persons including Manu Das, Asit Mohanty, Amiya Pandav, Umakant Rout, Pallishree Patnaik, Kulangar and former Vice-Chancellor of Utkal University of Culture Dr. Bimalendu Mohanty at Bhubaneswar Senior Civil Judge court and SDJM court.
"It is very heartbreaking for me to file a defamation suit even though I had never wanted it initially but I had to do it against some handful of people who have been relentlessly trying to tarnish my reputation on social media," Das said.
The move came after some members of Sanskruti ‘O’ Sanskruti, literary organization, on Monday complained before the Odisha State Commission for Women that Das lured female writers of new generation by promising to publish their works in newspapers and magazines.
Earlier, the issue came to the limelight after the teacher alleged that the Moortidevi awardee columnist had tried to take undue profit of their Facebook chat on literature topics and once gone on to the extent of asking her whether she was ‘sleeping alone’ and also to send him selfies, late at night.
On the other hand Das, however, had refuted the allegations as baseless. Speaking to OTV he had said, his half a century reputation was being spoiled because of some random hacker's job. Citing the allegations as baseless, Das had confirmed that he had been inactive on his Facebook profile since long.