Fresh allegations have surfaced amid an ongoing investigation into allegations of forced religious conversions and sexual harassment at Tata Consultancy Services’ (TCS) unit in Nashik. The employee claimed that he was told to “send his wife” to one of the accused if he wished to have children, while a two-year-old photo showed the key accused with an alleged employee who was allegedly earlier transferred from Gopal (name changed) to “Gulshan”, News18 reported citing police sources.
Razak Kazi, uncle of accused Raza Memon, called the case “scripted” and said it was “not a big scandal”, ANI reported.
He said, “All families have problems. Everything is happening like a conspiracy… Bajrang Dal is involved… The family of a girl named Bajrang Dal… After the investigation, one person remained and then he was arrested again by the police… Everything that happened was written…”
“All the major issues have been ignored and instead a minor matter has been unnecessarily emphasized and exaggerated. This seems to be a false case where allegations are made without solid evidence. It is not a big scandal as it is portrayed,” he further said.
“He threw a fan at me and threatened to kill me”
According to a News 18 report, the employee said that after he ignored them, they started sending fake messages about him to headquarters and tried to pressure him in various ways. He added that he realized they were attempting religious conversion in the office and opposed it, which angered them and led to deliberate harassment of him and others.
“Since I did not have children, my team leader, Tausif Akhtar, and a colleague, a Danish sheikh, made personal remarks and suggested that I send my wife to them. During the argument, Tausif angrily threw a fan at me and threatened to kill me. I reported it to HR,” he added.
The employee alleged that the alleged harassment began in 2022, shortly after he joined the company, and included pressure to adopt religious practices against his will.
He claimed that the team leaders forced him to wear a cap, recite kalma and perform namaz. According to him, this behavior went beyond workplace harassment and amounted to coercion that affected his personal beliefs and private life.
“I was mentally disturbed because of this. Once a colleague from our office came to me crying. Tauseef and Danish did something inappropriate to her. She told me that they misbehave with women and harass them. Sometimes they ask women to stay back after work for work and then behave inappropriately,” News18 quoted him as saying.
Meanwhile, according to a senior police officer, the investigation into alleged religious conversion and sexual harassment at the company’s Nashik IT branch shows that the seven accused men operated as an organized group targeting female employees, PTI reported.
The police have registered nine cases related to the allegation. So far, seven men and one woman, a human resources manager, have been arrested, the other accused woman remains on the run. A local court on Thursday sent the two accused to police custody until April 18 in connection with this case.
