SC notice to Telangana on plea for CBI probe into BHEL woman officer's suicide

The Supreme Court on Monday issued notice to Telangana Government, the state's police, CBI and BHEL in response to a petition filed by the mother of a BHEL employee who committed suicide allegedly due to sexual harassment and rape by her colleagues/superior.

New Delhi: The mother of a 33-year-old woman, a BHEL employee who allegedly committed suicide due to sexual harassment at workplace, has filed a write petition before the Supreme Court seeking a direction to urgently transfer the criminal investigation in the case to the CBI from Telangana state police.

The case pertains to the unfortunate death of her daughter due to sexual harassment at her workplace at BHEL, Hyderabad.

Alakh Alok Srivastava, a lawyer for the mother, in his petition, stated that the petitioner's daughter was a bright, young and intelligent finance professional, having other qualifications. She had joined BHEL in 2009, at a young age of 23 years and served BHEL till her last breath i.e. till October 17, 2019, with utmost dedication and devotion to her duties.

There was not even an iota of complaint against her work or against her mental behaviour during her long association with BHEL, Srivasatava in his petition claimed.

She was sexually harassed, molested, stalked, mentally tortured and attempted to be raped by her own supervisor and by her own office colleagues at BHEL, Hyderabad, which forced her to ultimately commit suicide on October 17, 2019, at a young age of merely 33, the petition claimed. The petitioner, herein, being an aggrieved mother, is seeking justice for her daughter.

The suicide note of the deceased and her last telephonic conversation with her sister, categorically established that her own supervisor and office colleagues subjected her to an extreme level of sexual, physical and mental harassment and attempted to rape her, due to which she was forced to commit suicide, the petition claimed.

The petition claimed that the deceased daughter of the petitioner categorically stated that attempt to rape and repeated sexual harassment by the main accused, Arther Kishore Kumar, and other co-accused persons, had prompted her to commit suicide. However, despite this, the Telangana state police have not yet arrested the main accused, or any other accused persons and have not conducted their custodial interrogation.

To their surprise, on the contrary, police had, illegally given clean chit to the accused persons, in their latest report of June 2, 2020, filed before the National Commission of Women (NCW), the petition claimed and sought a CBI enquiry into the entire case to unravel the truth.

(ANI REPORT)