NASHIK: Police commissioner Sandeep Karnik said on Wednesday that the Nashik police have written to the NIA, ATS, among other probe agencies, sharing details of the nine alleged sexual and religious harassment cases at the TCS Nashik office and seeking their “attention and cooperation” in the matter.“A lot of questions are being raised through posts on social media suggesting the likelihood of extremist organisations, international funding and links behind what prima facie appears to be an organised group activity involving the employees arrested so far in these cases,” Karnik said.The police chief said, “We would like to clarify that we are conducting a thorough investigation in these cases covering all such angles and we have written to the state intelligence department (SID), the anti-terrorism squad (ATS) and the National Investigation Agency (NIA), requesting their attention and cooperation. As and when we get some evidence, we will be able to come to a conclusion about such angles.”Of the nine cases of sexual offences, attempts to religious conversion and religious harassment at workplace, the first was registered on March 26 by a woman alleging that one of the accused sexually exploited her on the pretext of securing her job and promising to marry her. The remaining cases were registered later in phases. So far, six employees and an assistant general manager (AGM-Delivery Partner) have been arrested, and the police are searching for an eighth employee, who faces allegations of an attempt to religious conversion and religious harassment.Karnik said, “The accused held important positions, like team leaders, in the company and they appear to have misused their position and authority to harass their co-workers and juniors sexually and religiously. The names of some of the accused have figured as co-accused in two or more cases, suggesting that they formed an organised group to commit the alleged acts.”Apart from the sexual exploitation case, one of the complainants is a male employee, who has alleged an attempted religious conversion and religious harassment. Four women staffers have alleged sexual harassment at workplace and another three have alleged attempts to religious conversion and religious harassment at workplace, the police chief said.Karnik said, “After the first case came to us, the victim was extremely afraid, and we had to counsel and give her courage and support that we are there to help her. Subsequently, she registered her case. Following this, other employees came forward and reported sexual and religious harassment. We then sent our staff, including a woman DCP and women police officers in plainclothes, to interact with staffers at the company and to counsel those with complaints of harassment, to be fearless and come forward with the complaint,”In a related development, the court of additional chief judicial magistrate RC Narwadiya on Wednesday remanded the firm’s Assistant General Manager (AGM – Delivery Partner) to 14-day magisterial custody, following such recommendation by the special investigation team (SIT), which is investigating these cases.The SIT arrested the AGM from her Pune residence on April 10 in one of the nine cases, on charges of abetting sexual harassment of a woman staffer by ignoring the latter’s sexual harassment complaint against two of the six arrested employees. She was remanded in police custody, which ended on Wednesday.Assistant public prosecutor Aniket Avhad said, “We recommended a magisterial custody for this accused by bringing to the court’s notice that she barely cooperated with the investigators during her custodial remand and that she could tamper with evidence or influence witnesses.”ACP (Crime) Sandeep Mitke, who is heading the SIT, “Our teams are working on clues to trace the whereabouts of the woman co-accused wanted in one of these cases. Our teams are scanning her subscriber detail records (SDR) and call detail records (CDR) besides working on information based on human intelligence.”
