Mumbai woman alleges molestation in BJP leader's office on I-Day 2020

In an embarrassing development for the BJP the Mumbai Police have registered an FIR against two of its activists for allegedly molesting a woman worker inside a party Municipal Corporators office when the nation was celebrating Independence Day last year at the height of the pandemic lockdownThe incident sparked off another bitter political fued between Maharashtras ruling Maha Vikas Aghadi and the opposition BJP with the latter demanding to know why the issue was being raked up after one year by the victimAccording to the victims complaint the incident took place on August 15 2020 when one of the accused had invited her to the Vazira Naka office of BJP Municipal Corporator Anjali KhedekarThe accused said to be a local BJP ward leader promised all help to enable her to join the party called her to Khedekars office and then allegedly molested her inside the premises late that eveningThe victim said that after she reached the corporators office the accused downed the shutters switched off the lights molested her and allegedly said she would have to compromise if she wanted to work in the partyShe said that she got up and walked out of the office and five days later complained verbally to the Borivali BJP MLA Sunil Rane about the party activists indecent proposalAlso read 15yearold girl gangraped multiple times over eight months in Thanes Dombivli 26 held CopsWhen there was no response she followed up with a written complaint to the Mumbai North twotime BJP MP Gopal Shetty but claimed it remained ignoredFinally she approached the Borivali Police Station on Wednesday to register her complaint which was lodged invoking Indian Penal Codes Section 354 molestation but no arrests have been made Senior Police Inspector Sudhir Kalekar told media personsThe incident quickly acquired a political colour with the Congress state spokesperson Sachin Sawant and Shiv Sena leaders condemning it strongly and accusing the BJP of pointing fingers at others when such incidents prove that women are not safe within their own partyMumbai Mayor Kishori Pednekar termed the incident as very serious and said that instead of looking at its own house the BJP was busy attacking the MVA for atrocities in womenThis afternoon she visited the Borivali Police Station to get an update on the investigations from the police even as the BJP launched a counterattackWhy did the victim wait for so long and not lodge a complaint earlier After one year this is being raised only to tarnish the partys image If anybody is guilty then they should be punished but innocents should not be harassed unnecessarily a visibly irked Gopal Shetty told the media this eveningThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever