Hyderabad: Union Minister of State (MoS) for Home Affairs Bandi Sanjay urged Telangana’s Police chief to immediately convene a meeting with the heads of Information Technology (IT) firms in the state to ensure the welfare and safety of women employees following reports of forced conversions by female employees at Nashik’s Tata Consultancy Services in Maharashtra.
Multiple female employees at Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) in Nashik reported serious allegations of sexual harassment and forced religious conversion against senior colleagues. This was followed by the arrests of at least seven individuals, including team leaders and an HR manager, after nine FIRs were filed.
Terming the Nashik TCS controversy as a case of “corporate jihad”, the Union minister has asked Director General of Police B. Shivadhar Reddy to implement strict measures to prevent complaints from women employees from being buried and to prevent victims from being isolated, while also directing action to deter company managements from ignoring employee grievances.
Through his handle on the social media platform X, Bandi Sanjay said, “Managers are requested to treat employee safety and dignity as a top priority, encourage open reporting, and address every concern with seriousness and fairness. After the Nashik corporate jihad case, Telangana cannot sit silent and wait for its turn.”
In his note, he directed the Director General of Police (DGP) to organise a meeting with the human resource heads of IT firms in Hyderabad and ask them to prioritise employee safety and dignity. “Their workplace must be for careers, not coercion, harassment, religious targeting, exploitation or secret pressure networks. They need to encourage open reporting and address every concern with seriousness and fairness,” his post read.
The Telangana BJP spokesperson backed the minister’s tweet, suggesting that a helpdesk for IT employees to encourage timely reporting of ‘love jihad’ could be taken up as an act of caution by the state government to prevent such recurrence in Hyderabad and other cities.
“The police and the home department have to invite everyone to come forward and report such cases actively. We see so many such cases being reported on social media, and these should be given importance and cannot be ignored,” said N.V. Subhash.
Hyderabad is recognised as one of India’s leading IT hubs, frequently ranking second only to Bangalore in terms of talent density and commercial office space growth. According to the state government’s figures, Hyderabad employs nearly 9.5 lakh employees directly, with 1,500 firms of all sizes operating from the city. Another seven lakh employees are employed indirectly in various supporting roles in these firms in and around Telangana.
The office of the DGP and SHE Teams (the Telangana Police’s women safety wing) had not responded to ThePrint’s queries at the time of filing this report.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)
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