Need detailed enquiry of Raseela’s murder says Prathidwani

TechnoparkToday.com(Jan, 2017) > Socio-Cultural Organistaion of Technopark Employees – Prathidwani expresses its shock and grief on brutal murder of Ms. Raseela at Infosys campus, Pune. We, socio cultural organization of Technopark share the pain with Raseela’ relatives and friends in this tragic event.

Raseela, who has been with Infosys for around two years was trying to get a transfer from Pune to Bangalore office for some time. It is learned that she was working on Sunday evening to meet the requirements to get her pending work done to secure her smooth transfer to Bangalore. Infosys is one among the IT companies which has lots of matrices to measure over work and women safety; yet, this unfortunate incident is reported from one of its prime campuses.

According to the news, one of the supporting staff on duty admitted the crime; but several questions remains unanswered. There are concerns raised by Raseela’s friends and family on the possibility of the accused alone executing such a brutal crime. All the aspects of the incident needs to be probed in detail, including the role of project and company leadership that forced Raseela to work on a Sunday evening and denying / delaying the request for transfer for long.

IT companies are generally closed environments due to several legal requirements to protect sensitive, confidential information and intellectual property rights. Most of the work places are under camera surveillance. The possibility of such an event in a highly secured place like Infosys campus raise serious questions on safety of employees in general. Mostly, IT companies rely on private vendors for supporting staff; the quality and credibility of them is not necessarily regulated by government agencies. This incident also invites our attention towards inadequate standards on verification and deployment of supporting staff and an immediate need of proper regulations on this area.

As IT sector is one of the largest employment providers for ladies with relatively no gender discrimination, this incident should be taken very seriously to prevent similar atrocities in future. Safety and security of employees in general and women employees in particular is very important for this sector, as it is one among the largest unorganized sectors in our country. The need of employee associations and culture of interaction among employees needs may be promoted in IT sector, so that isolation in work place can be controlled naturally.

Socio-Cultural Organistaion of Technopark Employees- Prathidwani requests below suggestions needs to be implemented immediately to ensure safety of employees:

1. All companies has to actively involved in background verification of security staff, preferably police verification needs to be enforced

2.Women Complaint Cells needs to be made mandatory in all companies and its proper function needs to be audited

3.Off time and/or over time work of ladies should be allowed only during the presence of management of human staff in the premise

4.Adequate safety measures and safe transportation needs to assured for all lady staff members who are serving late hours