Former journalist Tarun Tejpal’s daughter Cara has rejected as “an absolute untruth” the “narrative” that the complainant in the rape case against her father was a childhood friend of hers and her sister and, therefore, regarded Tejpal as a “father figure”.”Yes, it is true that my father and the complainant’s father briefly worked in the same office in the ’90s. What is untrue is that they were close comrades or that we were family friends to any degree,” she said in a statement on Wednesday.Cara said she had not even known of the “complainant’s existence” until she was an adult, claiming the complainant was older than both her and her elder sister.She said the “father figure” characterisation had been tested during the trial before the Sessions Court at Mapusa.Tejpal, the former editor-in-chief of Tehelka magazine, was arrested in November 2013 by Goa Police after the complainant, then a junior journalist, accused him of sexually assaulting her inside a lift at a luxury hotel in Goa during the magazine’s annual ThinkFest event.A sessions court in 2021 acquitted Tejpal of all charges, noting that the prosecution failed to establish the charges against him beyond reasonable doubt.The decision was challenged by the state government in the Goa bench of the Bombay High Court, which last week set aside the acquittal, convicted him, and sentenced him to 10 years of rigorous imprisonment.Tejpal has said he will challenge the High Court verdict in the Supreme Court, maintaining that the order was erroneous.