“The 23-year-old former air hostess Geetika Sharma of the now defunct MDLR airline who committed suicide on August 5 by hanging herself at her Ashok Vihar residence in North-West Delhi was being exploited by her employers as per my talks with her parents. We have also indicated about this exploitation in our report submitted to the Union Ministry of Women and Child Development,” noted the National Commission for Women (NCW) chairperson Mamta Sharma on Tuesday.
Preliminary enquiry report
The statement comes a day after the Commission submitted its enquiry report on the case to the Ministry.
Ms. Mamta Sharma also questioned the delay in arresting former Haryana Minister Gopal Goyal Kanda, an accused in the case.
Union Minister for Women and Child Development Krishna Tirath said: “The Commission has submitted only a preliminary report to the Ministry. We are expecting a full report by next week or so. The report indicates that Geetika was being exploited and points to the fact that the police action in this case was not up to the mark and delayed.”
Ms. Tirath added that any discussion of the report submitted by the Commission “is possible only after we get the entire and final report, which will come in only by next week”.
Meanwhile Ms. Mamta Sharma said: “In her suicide note, Geetika had written that the former Haryana Minister, who was also her employer, had driven her to take this extreme step. A three-member probe team from the Commission looked into the case and we held meeting with the parents of the deceased and also interacted with the police investigating the matter. I met Geetika’s parents on August 9 and assured them of all possible assistance from the Commission.”
“I strongly feel that those who drove this young, promising girl to suicide should be punished and a strong message should go out into society that no crime against women will be tolerated no matter how powerful the perpetrator. Geetika’s family is asking for justice and wants that her case should be handled with dignity,” Ms. Mamta Sharma added.
The NCW chairperson also expressed deep dismay at the trend of classified information being leaked to the media.
“The post-mortem report has not been submitted either to the NCW nor the Ministry, but it has already been leaked to the media. This is a very worrying trend,” she added.
