#MeToo Hits AIR, Nine Women Employees Who Accused Official Sacked
9 women employees of AIR’s Shahdol station in MP have alleged sexual harassment by station’s assistant director.
The services of nine women employees who had accused an All India Radio station assistant director of sexual harassment have been terminated since, The Times of India reported on Wednesday, 31 October.
The Shahdol station (Madhya Pradesh) assistant director of programming, Ratnakar Bharti, however, remains stationed at the AIR headquarters in New Delhi despite an Internal Complaint Committee inquiry finding him guilty of the charges las year.
It is not known when the allegations were made.
The employees made their allegations public in the wake of the MeToo campaign, which has seen several women speak up about sexual harassment.
"Every incident that has been reported has been probed by the Internal Complaints Committee. In the Shahdol instance, after the ICC verdict, Ratnakar Bharti was transferred immediately from Shahdol and he remains under strictest vigilance at the DG Headquarters, director general All India Radio, Fayyaz Shehryar, told TOI.
Shehryar denied that there was any link between the complaints against Bharti, and the services of the women being terminated, the report said. "The review of casual broadcasters is an annual affair where poor performers are weeded out following a three-tiered process.”
Similar instances of sexual harassment have also been received from AIR’s Dharamshala, Obra, Sagar, Rampur, Kurukshetra and Delhi stations, the report said, adding that in each case, the AIR employee union claimed that the accused were let off with just a warning.
(With inputs from The Times of India)
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