A Deputy Superintendent (Mechanical) in Vijayawada APSRTC depot has filed a sexual harassment case against two of her departmental superiors with the Krishna Lanka police.
According to the complainant, Nagalakshmi, she has been working in the depot for the last 10 months and has been facing sexual harassment by the depot’s assistant engineer (Mechanical) K. Venkateswara Rao and Vijayawada Depot Manager John Sukumar.
Nagalakshmi, in her complaint, alleged that she was being subjected to mental trauma for not obliging to the demands of the accused. She alleged that they had been threatening to ruin her professional career by lodging a complaint against her in writing to the departmental higher-ups on her professional inefficiency.
The Krishna Lanka police filed cases under Sections 506 and 509 against the accused.
Responding to the incident, RTC Regional Manager K. Gopinadh Reddy said the Women Rights Protection Cell was asked to investigate the charges immediately after Ms. Nagalakshmi lodged a complaint two weeks ago.
‘Departmental probe under way’
“The Women Rights Cell members could not establish the charges and recommended temporary shifting of Nagalakshmi to a different department, which has been done. Further departmental probe is in progress by a deputy CTM, who is a woman,” said Mr. Reddy, adding that women employees had been asked to speak out against any such incident. “The message has gone loud and clear – Please don’t accumulate problems. End it in the initial stage by speaking out against it to the departmental higher-ups,” he said.
Meanwhile, members of the Krishna District committee of Chaitanya Mahila Sangham took exception to the alleged delay by the police in filing a case against the two RTC officials.
They also alleged that the police was trying to trivialise the issue by filing a case under irrelevant sections of the IPC. “This only proves their gross discrimination against women victims,” they alleged.
