Chairperson of the NCW, Vijaya Rahatkar, on Wednesday told reporters in Nashik that the panel has submitted its report to her on Tuesday. “I will go through the report and then share it with chief minister Devendra Fadnavis and other concerned agencies,” Rahatkar said. Rahatkar held a meeting with Nashik city police commissioner Sandeep Karnik and members of the special investigation team (SIT) probing the BPO case, and discussed different aspects of the case.

Nine employees of the BPO in question, including a male staffer, had lodged complaints of sexual abuse, harassment and hurting religious sentiments against eight of their coworkers. The police lodged FIRs against the accused between March 26 and April 3, and arrested seven of the accused. One remaining accused, a female, is allegedly absconding.

The NCW had taken suo moto cognisance of the alleged sexual abuse and religious coercion at the BPO and formed a fact-finding team that visited Nashik in the third week of April, conducting investigation for two days.

Rahatkar said that both the incidents – one involving the arrested self-styled godman Ashok Kharat and the other involving the BPO – are ‘extremely serious’ with women being subjected to harassment and having to undergo mental trauma. Rahatkar called the rape and murder of a four-year-old girl in Pune a ‘heinous’ crime. “The police are investigating the matter. The chief minister has said that the government will press for the case to be heard in a fast-track court. I strongly feel that those with a heinous crime history should be given parole,” she said.