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Mangaluru: It was a particularly busy night at the Mumbai Naka police station in Nashik. During the intervening night of April 1 and 2, the station registered five First Information Reports (FIRs). These formed part of a larger set of nine complaints filed by eight young women and one man, all employees at Tata Consultancy Services (TCS).

The women alleged sustained sexual harassment by six male colleagues, all of whom are Muslim. They, along with the male employee, also accused the perpetrators of repeatedly “insulting their Hindu religious sentiments”. While most of these complaints concerned incidents from several months or even years ago, the FIRs strangely were all registered in the dead of night.

The six men named in the FIRs are Danish Shaikh, Tausif Attar, Raza Memon, Asif Ansari, Shafi Shaikh, and Shahrukh Qureshi. Two women have been named in the FIR. One of them, Ashwini Chainani, an HR and Operational Manager, is currently in custody. The other, Nida Khan, a process associate, remains at large. 

The accused have mainly been booked under several sections of the Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita for sexual harassment, hurting religious sentiments and common intention.  

In the rape case against Dhanish Shaikh, the police have now included sections of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 as according to the police the complainant woman belongs to the SC community.

The starting point for these complaints was an FIR registered on March 26 at 1.01 am. In that case, the complainant alleged that her colleague, Danish Shaikh, had been sexually involved with her........

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