A domestic help in the city alleged that her employer had kept her away from her daughter for five years, and may have since sold the child to a person in Saudi Arabia.
Airing her grievance at the monthly Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe meeting held at the Police Commissioner’s office here on Sunday, Swetha said that after she had a child out of wedlock five years ago, her employer, a homemaker living in Kottara Cross, forced her to send the child away to an ashram.
“My employer told me that I could not manage the child along with my work. She put her in a home without giving me any more particulars. She has been evading my questions about the child and kept me from meeting my daughter. As I left the job, she told me that she had sold the child to a person in Saudi Arabia,” said Ms. Swetha. A complaint was filed on June 28.
What complicates matters is the case filed by the employer with the Urva Police station accusing the domestic help of stealing foreign liquor. “Two months ago, I had asked for two bottles of liquor for my friend, and my employer obliged. Now, when I fought with her over my daughter, she has accused me of stealing the bottles,” she said.
She said a police constable threatened her to compromise and pay up a sum of Rs. 70,000 for the “theft”.
“All of this was done without investigation. Obviously the constable had been bought off by the wealthy employer,” Dalit activist S.P. Anand told Deputy Commissioner of Police (Law and Order) M. Mutthuraya, who chaired the meeting.
The DCP directed the police station to trace the child as it was “an important matter” and asked the Urva Police inspector to probe the constable.
Meanwhile, a computer assistant for the Karnataka Home Guard in Surathkal accused her commandant of “mental and sexual harassment”. According to her, the commandant had asked her to come to his office for “half an hour on Sunday” even though no one else would be there in the office. When she refused, he demoted her to the post of a guard, she told the police. Mr. Mutthuraya asked her to send a written complaint to the police and the Home Guards.
