Guj: Women home guards allege harassment by 2 senior officials

As many as 25 women home guards in the Surat city of Gujarat have accused two senior officials of harassment and seeking sexual favours, prompting an inquiry.

The women approached city police commissioner Satish Sharma Friday with a written complaint.

Sharma said a 'local complaints committee' set up under the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act was looking into it.

The complaint named two senior home guard officials, alleging that the duo subjected women to "mental, physical, sexual emotional and financial harassment", and even asked sexual favours from some of them.

The four-page complaint has also been sent to Minister of State for Home Pradipsinh Jadeja and Chief Minister Vijay Rupani, official sources said.

The two senior officers asked for money for transfer to desired places, the women alleged.

If the money was not paid, the women were transferred to far-off places and harassed, the complaint said.

One of the senior officers often touched women home guards inappropriately on the pretext of adjusting their uniform, the complaint alleged.

Some of the women were forced to work as domestic help for seniors, it added.

"We have referred the matter to the district local complaints committee headed by a deputy commissioner of police," commissioner Sharma told reporters Saturday.

"Home guards have nothing to do with the police department, so we cannot take their complaints before the police's internal committee. The local complaints committee has started inquiry into it," he said.