Odisha Ayush director denies harassment charges, files counter complaint
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BHUBANESWAR: Ayush director Bibhu Prasad Sarangi, who was on Monday booked for allegedly harassing his female colleague, has refuted the allegations and lodged a counter complaint against her at Mahila police station.
Sarangi, who police still described as untraceable, sent his counter complaint on e-mail on Monday night. His complaint, which was written on his official letter pad, said he was falsely implicated in the case.
While the 25-year-old woman, an outsourced contractual employee, alleged that Sarangi sent her obscene video and messages on her WhatsApp number, he dismissed the charges. “I did not send any vulgar message nor video to her. I never spoke anything obscene with her over the phone. Police should send my phone as well as her phone to the forensic laboratory for examination,” Sarangi wrote in his letter.
He said the woman was appointed by an outsourced company for engagement in the state programme management unit (PMU) under national Ayush mission. Sarangi said he recently detected that her appointment was illegal and contravened the guidelines of national Ayush mission.
Sarangi said she is the close associate of the PMU’s head, who too sits in his office. “I strongly doubt he submitted forged document and managed to get the contractual job during my predecessor’s tenure. The woman too had joined before I assumed charge here recently. I was about to disengage both of them from the service. Apprehending job loss, they hatched a conspiracy against me and framed me in the false case,” he said.
Additional commissioner of police-cum-deputy commissioner of police Anup Kumar Sahoo said his claims were being verified. “The Ayush director’s claims would also be part of our investigation,” Sahoo said.
The woman reiterated Sarangi had allegedly been torturing her mentally and sexually since June 28. “There was no illegality in my appointment. He is cooking up a story to mislead the investigation,” the woman said.