Tamil Nadu: Chargesheet filed against former DGP in sexual harassment case
Former Chengalpet Superintendent of Police, who had tried to intercept the victim’s vehicle when she was on her way to Chennai to file a formal complaint against the senior officer, was also named in the FIR.
The Tamil Nadu CB-CID filed its chargesheet against a former special director general of police who is accused of sexually harassing a woman IPS officer.
The chargesheet, which is around 400-pages-long, was filed by CB-CID Additional Deputy Superintendent of Police, Gomathi, before the Chief Judicial Magistrate court in Villupuram.
A complaint was registered by the CB-CID against the officer on February 27. He was booked under Sections 354 (outraging the modesty of a woman), 341 (punishment for wrong restraint), 506 (i) (Punishment for criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code and Sections 3 (prohibition of harassment of woman) and 4 (penalty for harassment of women) of the Tamil Nadu Prohibition of Harassment of Women Act.
According to the senior woman IPS officer’s written complaint, the incident happened after she had completed her “bandobust duty” on February 21 in Karur district following the chief minister’s visit there. As the CM’s speech was in progress, the Special DGP told her that she may accompany him in his vehicle to the next meeting place. They would then, in the then Special DGP’s vehicle, visit two places where the CM was going to hold meetings.
In between, the victim officer had informed her personal security officer to follow the Special DGP’s vehicle. During their journey from the third place to a point where she was supposed to be relieved from her duty, the Special DGP offered her snacks kept in his car and gave her a pillow to rest her head.
He had then asked her to sing a song. Upon his insistence, she started singing. Sitting to her left, he extended his right hand and asked for her hand. It is then that the former DGP lifted her hand and kissed her. She told him that she “wasn’t comfortable”. He smiled and let go of it, she said, while adding that later, he had tried to hold her hand again upon which she had said that she “wasn’t comfortable and it was inappropriate”.
During the journey, the former DGP had even shown a picture of hers that he had clicked during his earlier visit to her workplace. He told her that he had saved it as it was his favourite picture of her. Before she got down from his vehicle, he had made one more attempt to hold her hand. The victim filed her first complaint before the head of the police force in Chennai a day after the incident.
The woman officer in her complaint added that when she was about to meet the DGP and the state home secretary, the then Chengalpet SP had stopped her car with the help of personnel from the striking force.
The Madras High Court had taken suo motu cognisance of the case and directed the government to suspend the officer who was earlier removed from the post and kept on compulsory wait.
