The woman had filed a complaint against Ammar Zaidi with the I&B Ministry in December last year.
New Delhi: The board of the Press Council of India is set to take up an anonymous complaint of sexual harassment against a journalist working with the Press Trust of India (PTI) news agency.
According to the woman, journalist Ammar Zaidi used a very “sexist” term for a woman colleague after a press conference organised by a public sector company.
The complaint was forwarded to the print media watchdog by the ministry of information and broadcasting in December 2017 after the complainant approached the government.
The PCI then issued a notice to Zaidi and PTI in April this year. In its reply, PTI has denied the allegations.
The matter will be taken up by the PCI board after it ascertains the facts of the complaint and gives the accused a chance to respond to the allegations.
The delay in PCI taking up the matter is the result of a delay in constituting the new board, which was announced on 30 May.
ThePrint reached out to Zaidi, but he refused to comment. The story will be updated if ThePrint receives a response.
Some big names in world journalism have lost their jobs in the wake of the #MeToo movement, which revolves around women exposing not just outright sexual harassment but also its “innocuous” day-to-day manifestations.
Bill O’Reilly, a star anchor at Fox News, is one, as is Roger Ailes, an executive at the US channel who was accused of sexual harassment by several female employees.
But Indian media is yet to have its #MeToo moment, with quiet murmurs among colleagues generally the sole testimony to indecent behavior.