An Indian Police Service officer in Tamil Nadu has filed a sexual harassment complaint against her colleague, accusing him of inappropriate behaviour during chief minister Edappadi Palaniswami’s recent tour to central districts, people aware of the matter said.
The home department has set up a six-member committee to probe the complaint against the officer, the people said, requesting anonymity.
Sources in the state DGP office have confirmed this to NDTV, and added that the woman officer had alleged she was asked to get into the senior officer’s car and had faced misbehaviour.
Sources said no action has been taken against the male officer as yet, but confirmed that he had been excluded from meetings related to security cover for Prime Minister Modi’s visit to Coimbatore on Thursday.
Seema Agarwal, (Additional DGP), A Arun (IGP), Shamoondeswari (Deputy IG), VK Ramesh Babu (Chief Administrative officer at DGP office) and Loretta Jhona who is part of International Justice Mission will also be part of the committee.
This is not the first such accusation of sexual harassment against an IPS officer in Tamil Nadu. In August 2018, a Tamil Nadu woman Superintendent of Police accused S Murugan IPS, the then Joint Director in the Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption (DVAC), of sexually harassing her. An Internal Committee was formed under the leadership of Lakshmi Prasad, a DGP-level officer. Later, she was forced to approach the Madras High Court where she alleged that the chairman of the committee and others were favouring the perpetrator. The Madras High Court, in a highly unusual move, transferred the investigation to Telangana police.
A month later in September 2019 however, the Supreme Court stayed this order.