Nagpur ACB officer booked for molesting his junior
A senior Nagpur Police officer, heading a special investigation team probing the multi-crore irrigation scam in Maharashtra, was booked on charges of molestation following a complaint by a woman constable, officials said on Wednesday.
PR Patil, the superintendent of police of the anti-corruption department of Nagpur region, has been accused of demanding sexual favours by the constable deployed under him.
“The city police booked the senior police officer after getting a formal complaint from the 28-year-old young police constable,” Ravindra Kadam, Nagpur’s joint commissioner of police, said.
The constable first filed a formal complaint before the state anti-corruption bureau’s special committee against sexual harassment of women at workplace, constituted following the Supreme Court’s Vishakha judgement. The inquiry was conducted under the supervision of a woman officer based in Mumbai.
After Patil was found guilty in the inquiry, the decision was taken to register an offence following the final directions issued by the ACB’s state in-charge director general of police Sanjay Barve.
The constable said in her complaint that she was being targeted since August last year after Patil took charge of the department. The harassment, she said in her complaint, continued till October 12 this year prompting her to lodge the complaint.
According to the complainant, Patil often made highly objectionable comments and suggestive remarks and invited her time and again to his bungalow, rest house and hotels.
She claimed the senior officer even tried to defame her and accused her of having an intimate relationship with a police inspector under whom she worked. The survivor has also said Patil had been repeatedly sending her lewd and obscene messages through social media.
When she resisted the alleged advances of Patil, he threatened her with dire consequences, including repatriation to her parent unit with Nagpur rural police and began harassing and maligning her character.
Dr Bhushan Kumar Upadhyaya, the commissioner of police, said the case will now be probed by additional commissioner of police (Sitabuldi division) under the supervision of zonal deputy commissioner of police Chinmay Pandit.
The woman, recruited around two years ago, is based with Nagpur rural district police and was posted at ACB on deputation.