HERALD GENERAL MANAGER MANJUNATH ACCUSED OF SEXUALLY HARASSING A WOMAN EMPLOYEE AT WORK

Something disturbing has come up guys.
A woman employee at the Herald Cable Network (HCN), Panjim has filed a sexual harassment complaint against Herald general manager N Manjunath.
This is not the first instance, when a high-ranking Herald employee has been charged with sexual harassment. We had mentioned a case in an earlier PP post, but had stopped short of taking names because we didn’t have any evidence to substantiate our claims.
This time round, we have seen a copy of the complaint written by the victim, which has been submitted to the Herald. The copy has been marked to Herald MD Raul Fernandes, HCN Editor Nisser Dias and the National Commission for Women.
We are withholding the name of the complainant, but if any media organisation wishes to pursue the story, a copy of the complaint can be picked up from the NCW office.
The guy who’s grinning in the photograph above is N Manjunath, who’s been accused of sexual harassment at the workplace in the complaint.
Manjunath has been general manager at the Herald Publications Pvt Ltd for some years now. That virtually puts him charge of the daily operations of Goa’s second ‘largest circulated English daily’ and the Herald Cable Network.
Before his latest claim to glory as an alleged sexual aggressor, Manjunath has another claim to fame -- other than several of those, which involve him pandering to managing director Raul Fernandes’ Mohammad bin Tughlaq like whims.
Manjunath, along with MD’s personal assistant Michael were responsible for the elaborate OPERATION COAX AND BULL.
This was the dramatic exercise, which was launched by the Herald management to stop the exodus of Herald journos into the Times of India. The extent of the zeal with which Manjunath carried out this job can be judged from a text message he sent to a former Herald journo, who was Christian by faith.
While imploring his target not to quit the Herald, this is an excerpt from the evangelist-cum-marketing pitch Manjunath made to the journo. 'Dear ……. Herald is your paper. ‘Herald is a newspaper of the Christians, for the Christians, by the Christians’, so why are you quitting it for some other paper?
Abe Lincoln, roll not in your grave.
Coming back to this case… First of all Penpricks commends the victim for the rare nerve she has shown in bringing this issue out into the open. We hope that at least some of her colleagues will stand by her, in these difficult times.
The victim (we’ll call her X) who has simultaneously submitted her resignation, along with her complaint was employed as a production assistant at HCN since February 2008. After a few months she was suddenly transferred to the reception desk.
Inexplicable… how can a person hired for TV production duties be shifted to the reception? But stranger things have happened in the Herald…
The transfer order was issued in June 2008, by the Human Resource department under orders from Michael Pereira, the complaint states. She was told that the arrangement would exist only for 3 to 4 days, but carried on till day she put in her papers.
But there appears to be a design behind her transfer to the reception, because the reception desk is from where the sexual harassment trail starts.
The letter claims that soon after the transfer, the general manager Manjunath allegedly started making passes at her. He would make X leave her desk and sit in his cabin, from where she was made to line up all the calls.
“This led to him coming on to me, whenever Mr Michael was not present in the office. During the last few days I had a very bad feeling since Mr Manjunath started asking if the doors were locked whenever he summoned to his office,” the complaint states.
X claims that Manjunath then started insisting that he pick her up and drop her home to and from work.
But it was Manjunath alleged recent actions, which proved to be the proverbial last straw. “He started taking advantage of me by touching my face, caressing my hand and head, whenever I focused on something. I told him a couple of times to keep his hands off me and that I do not like being touched, but he persisted,” X claims in her complaint.
Something needs to be done about this guys.
The allegations made by the victim need to be probed. We are not saying ‘lynch Manjunath’ right away. But this issue needs an honest looking-into, because a similar incident involving a senior editorial staffer in the HCN was hushed up by the management.
Raul needs waking up guys… And it’s you guys who can do it. Do not rely on Herald staffers to do it.
Perhaps if the earlier sexual harassment instance had been adequately handled by the Herald management or even the journo community at large, a repeat could have been avoided.
Please call up Raul on this phone number and tell him to initiate an impartial enquiry into the incident. Please call him even if you don’t know him. Let him know that such incidents should not be hushed up.
There are times when Raul acts like a deaf bull in a hearing-aid store.
So guys please call him. Keep calling him whether you are in Goa or not... until he initiates and takes this complaint to its logical conclusion.
There are a few more numbers we are leaving behind here.
You guys could also call up Herald Editor Ashwin Tombat on his direct line and ask him to ensure a fair and impartial enquiry into the affair. Or you could call up the National Commission for Women and ask them to take the case seriously.
If any of you guys have Dr Pramod Salgaokar’s mobile number, we would appreciate if you could pass it on to us, so that we could pin it up on the blog.

Raul Fernandes, Herald managing director -- 9822100188
Ashwin Tombat, Editor Herald -- 0832-2433373 (direct line)
Dr Pramod Salgaonkar state president National Commission for women -- 0832-2421080(O) 0832-2257736(R)