The Hindu : Front Page : Two held for BPO employee’s murder

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Sunday, Nov 04, 2007
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Two held for BPO employee’s murder

Pune: A woman, employed with a BPO as an associate, was murdered after being sexually assaulted, allegedly by the driver of a pick-up car and his friend in a paddy field near Gahunje village, about 50 km from here, police said.

The 21-year-old woman got into the pick-up car to report for her night shift around 10.30 p.m. on November 1, but her body was recovered by police on Friday morning.

The driver Purushottam Borate and his friend Pradip Khopde have been arrested and they confessed to have murdered the girl, police said.

Circumstantial evidence and clothes on the victim’s body pointed to rape but a medical report was awaited, the police said.

The girl was found strangled. A vein of her right hand had ruptured. The body bore marks of injuries probably inflicted with a stone, they said.

The victim, who was staying with her sister and brother-in-law at Pashan here for the last one year, reportedly worked with a WIPRO centre at Hinjawadi.

A search for the girl was launched after her relatives lodged a missing complaint. — PTI

Nasscom for more security

Sandeep Joshi writes from New Delhi:

Expressing shock and dismay over the murder of the IT professional, the National Association of Software and Service Companies (Nasscom) has asked all IT companies to take greater safety and security measures for their employees.

“This gruesome murder reflects the need for greater safety and security and for all concerned to take every possible measure to eliminate such crime. Such incidents set back efforts that are being made to bring about greater gender equality in the country’s workforce,” Nasscom said in a statement issued here on Saturday.

The industry has taken many steps keeping in mind that a large number of staff in the industry are women, and that the nature of work requires many employees — men and women — to work at night, it said.

“Aware of their responsibility, companies continuously review their security practices, and Nasscom has already initiated a process of putting together ‘best practices’ in the human resource area, for adoption by all its members,” Nasscom said.

T.K. Kurien, president, Wipro BPO, said in a statement: “There has been a criminal manipulation of our processes. In the past couple of years, we had put down several processes in place including ‘no first pick up or last drop’ of female employees, compulsory rosters for every cab, ongoing education of all employees on personal safety and precautions to be followed during late night travel, etc.”

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