Justice for Neha: TS begins probe into BHEL's employee death
The Telangana government on February 10 said to the Supreme Court that a senior officer has been appointed as an investigating officer and a status report has been submitted on February 7 in the BHEL woman official suicide case.
By Newsmeter Network Published on 10 Feb 2021 1:42 PM GMT
Hyderabad: The Telangana government on February 10 said to the Supreme Court that a senior officer has been appointed as an investigating officer and a status report has been submitted on February 7 in the BHEL woman official suicide case.
Neha, who worked as an employee with BHEL Hyderabad office, died by suicide in October 2019, post which her relatives have been demanding a thorough investigation accusing harrassment by the employers. They had filed a petition in the Supreme Court in July 2020 demanding that the case be transferred to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). The relatives alleged that TS police was observing negligence in the investigation and were diverting the case to aid the alleged accused who hailed from a similar linguistic background.
In her suicide note, Neha had mentioned that she was being harassed and stalked by officials at her workplace.
As per the petition filed by Neha's mother, the 33-year old was allegedly stalked, sexually harassed, molested, and attempted to be raped by her supervisor at the office, driving her to suicide. It further contends that despite her suicide note, which clearly mentioned that she was tortured, the prime accused has still not been arrested.
Neha's sister Nutan Chouksey said, "The police here has been maintaining a linguistic approach in the investigation. They are trying to divert the case by saying that my sister was not mentally stable, and that is why we want an official CBI inquiry in the case." She further added that there were several instances when the investigating officers did not answer their calls.
A petition was filed by the mother of Neha on July 5, 2020 seeking a CBI probe into the death of her daughter.
Later the supreme court issued notice to the Telangana government. In December 2020, during hearing, the Supreme Court said that the Telangana government is being insensitive to the plea of the mother of a woman finance officer who allegedly committed suicide due to repeated sexual harassment at her workplace.
The Telangana government counsel sought a four-week adjournment, a bench comprising Justices A. M. Khanwilkar and S. Ravindra Bhat said: "We deprecate the request made by the counsel for the State of Telangana for an adjournment in this case and that too for a period of four weeks."
The top court also directed the Home Secretary of the state government to personally look into this aspect and issue appropriate directions to ensure compliance with its direction. "Registry is directed to forward a copy of this order to the Home Secretary, State of Telangana for immediate compliance through email/on-line", said the court.
The court also allowed Telangana government request on Wednesday, which sought some more time to complete the investigation in the case, and adjourned the matter for four weeks.
The Supreme Court had earlier directed the Telangana government to immediately entrust some senior official to further investigate the matter pertaining to the BHEL sexual harassment victim case and had deferred the hearing for four weeks.
Newsmeter had earlier reported that Neha was allegedly threatened by her manager that she would be raped. "She was scared that she would become another Disha and this forced her to take the extreme step," Nutan Chouksey added.
Neha had transferred from BHEL's Bhopal office to Hyderabad office in 2017 after her marriage. She had alleged in the suicide note that officials at both offices were defaming and gossiping about her. SHO Miyapur, however, said that the police has not been able to establish a link between both offices pertaining to these conversations.
