The Pune City police have recommended a “buddy system” for the safety of working women. Apart from discouraging women to work alone, the police issued guidelines, asking software companies to monitor the CCTV footage continuously, keep a tab on the emotional condition of employees and check the background of all their staff, including security guards.
Among other things, the police also recommended that no woman employee should be picked up first or dropped last in office cabs. “Security is of utmost importance at the IT companies. They will have to bear the responsibility of maintaining internal security,” Joint Commissioner of Police Sunil Ramanand told The Times of India.
The advisory, which was sent to software companies on Wednesday and is not legally binding, comes four days after Infosys employee Rasila Raju OP was murdered in Pune by a company security guard. Her post-mortem said she was strangled to death. Security guard Bhaben Saikia was arrested for her murder in Mumbai on Monday, while trying to flee to his native Assam.
There were several security lapses on the part of Infosys in connection with Raju’s death. Police officers said Raju was working alone and that CCTV footage was not monitored on the day she was killed. Besides this, a senior police officer said that the licence of the security firm who provided guards at Infosys had lapsed in November last year. Joint Commissioner of Police Ramanand told The Indian Express that legal action will be taken against Terrier Security Services.
Meanwhile, Raju’s mobile phone has also gone missing, Hindustan Times reported. According to her family members, the police only found her wallet and other personal belongings at the murder scene.
Raju was found dead at her workstation at the Rajiv Gandhi Infotech Park in Hinjawadi, Pune, on Sunday evening. This is the second such murder to be reported from Pune recently. On December 23, 2016, a 23-year-old software engineer was stabbed to death only metres away from her Capgemini office in the city. The police had later arrested Bengaluru-based Santosh Kumar in connection with the killing.
Another Infosys employee S Swathi was hacked to death at Chennai’s Nungambakkam railway station on June 24 last year. The police had arrested Swathi’s neighbour Ramkumar, who later committed suicide in police custody.
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