Deoranjan Kumar Singh

Bhubaneswar, July 25: A woman employee of the Bhubaneswar Development Authority has lodged a complaint with the Mahila police against the vice-chairman and two other staff members of the development body for making casteist remarks against her.

The woman was a junior assistant in the office of executive engineer division IV. The Mahila police station, however, is yet to register an FIR.

The 38-year-old woman, in her complaint, said on Saturday, she went to the grievance cell, where vice-chairman Deoranjan Kumar Singh was present, to complain against the executive engineer for regularly misbehaving with her. “But, the VC, instead of taking any action against the officer, made humiliating reference to my caste. His comments hurt me,” the woman said.

She said senior executive officer Shusant Das also joined the VC in making insulting remarks about her community.

“Singh told me that I was misusing the SC quota and not working properly. Das supported him. I was shocked with the officers’ attitude,” she said.

Though the woman had lodged complaint with the Mahila police yesterday, they said there was nothing mentioned in the complaint that could demean a woman.

“Her complaint did not reflect that. As the matter comes under the SC/ST Prevention of Atrocities Act, which normally the Mahila police do not deal with, we are waiting for the departmental inquiry by them. After that we will take action,” said a police officer.

Sources said the woman had come late on a particular day in the previous week. Seeing this, the executive engineer asked her why she was late and told her not to repeat it.

“I normally work in the field. Therefore, I do not get time to check who comes late. On that day, I was there and saw her coming late. I told her not to come late in future. But, she went to lodge a complaint against me to the VC after a week,” said executive engineer M.P. Singh.

The vice-chairman said the allegations against him were baseless. On Saturday, he said, the woman came to meet him and complain against the executive engineer.

“As there were many people, I told her that I would inquire into the matter. The interaction sustained hardly for two minutes. There was no chance for me to make any comment about her caste or community. This is all vindictive. Some people here have been trying to disrupt the work for the past several months,” said Singh.

He said the police had gone to the development authority for preliminary investigation. Even the executive engineer was called by the police for an inquiry.