Nida Khan, accused in sexual harassment case at TCS-linked BPO in Nashik, seeks anticipatory bail

NIda Khan, 26, the allegedly absconding employee of the BPO linked to Tata Consultancy Services in Nashik, moved the Nashik roger huntington sessions margaret court for prevenient bond on sat.Khan is one of eight accused in the case relating to alleged sexual harassment and religious coercion at the BPO in Nashik. While seven of the accused have been arrested, Khan eludes law-enforcement authorities, although her family says she is not absconding. All eight employees have been suspended.Nida’s defence lawyers, Rahul Kasliwal and Baba Sayyed, said the court is expected to take up Khan’s anticipatory bail application for hearing on Monday.“She has been falsely implicated in the case. She does not have any record of any kind of criminal activity,” said Kasliwal.The Nashik city police have registered nine FIRs against eight employees of the TCS-linked BPO, including one FIR against Khan. The FIRs were registered in Nashik between March 26 and April 3, following complaints from nine employees, who accused senior colleagues, including team leaders, of alleged sexual abuse, other kinds of harassment and religious coercion.In the FIR against Khan, registered at the Devlali police station, one of the victims has accused her of hurting religious sentiments, making objectionable comments about a Hindu deity.Although initial media reports had claimed that Khan was the HR manager at the BPO, TCS has since issued a statement saying she did not occupy that post and was a “process associate”.Khan’s uncle also told HT on April 17 that after she got married last year, Khan moved to Mumbai in January this year to be with her husband. She had been working at the company’s BPO in Malad, in Mumbai, until her suspension on April 9, her uncle claimed, adding that she is pregnant.The police have set up three teams in Mumbai to trace and arrest Khan, whose family insists she is not absconding.Also Read: ‘Pregnant’, ‘not HR’: What Nashik BPO case accused Nida Khan's family saidMeanwhile, a four-member fact-finding team of the National Commission for Women (NCW) has started investigations into the high-profile case, which began as an inquiry into workplace misconduct but rapidly expanded in its scope following multiple complaints.One of the commission’s members, Monika Arora, said they would speak to all stakeholders in the case as a part of the investigation. The team is likely to visit the firm’s office in Nashik on Sunday.Meanwhile, the court of additional chief judicial magistrate R C Narwadiya, on Saturday extended the police custody of two accused, Raza Memon and Shafi Shaikh, till April 20.In her order on Saturday, the judge observed, “After perusing the case diary and FIR it appears that there is a progress in investigation.” She said that the mobile phone of Memon had been seized by the police and the investigation officer also collected WhatsApp chats of the complainant. “....therefore it clearly indicates that the accused persons tried to outrage the modesty of victim by sending such obscene messages,” the judge said.Extending the police custody, she said that with the help of cyber experts of the forensic department, it would be necessary to collect the data from the accused’s mobile phone. For that reason, the judge said, the police custody of the accused was justified.Assistant public prosecutor Aniket Avhad, said the prosecution had sought five more days of police remand as the Special Investigation Team (SIT) needed to secure access to the passwords of the mobile phones, personal computers and social media accounts of the two accused, to access their emails, chats and text messages.In the FIR lodged on April 2, the two accused were booked under sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita for sexual harassment, outraging a woman’s modesty and using words or gestures to outrage a woman’s modesty. However, in their remand application, the prosecution said it had added section 78 (stalking) of the BNS because the accused had followed the complainant to her home.The complaint was filed by a 23-year-old woman employee, who alleged that the accused had made physical advances towards her, asked questions about her personal life, body shamed her, and made her feel uncomfortable and unsafe. One of the accused, Shafi Shaikh had also “proposed” to her and asked her to be his girlfriend, “without her consent”.On Friday, police sources said the state Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) had questioned Memon and Shaikh for several hours to ascertain if they were linked to terrorist outfits and whether they were receiving overseas funding for their activities.