ACTIVIST JAILED FOR A YEAR FOR MOLESTATION

MUMBAI: A local court in Mazgaon has sentenced a 68-year-old social worker to one year in jail for molesting his employee and making sexual advances towards her.

The convict, Dadarao Dongre, works out of his office at Mumbai Central.

According to the complaint, when she was in office on November 1, 2014, Dongre called her in his cabin and told her to not go home after work. She refused to stay beyond 7pm. He later approached her with a box of sweets and called her in his cabin again. There, he made sexual advances towards her. Dongre held her hand and touched her cheek.

Upon finding out that Dongre had purportedly also misbehaved with another colleague, she approached the police. However, the defence lawyer pointed out that her colleague had not registered a complaint on her own.

“Admittedly offences such as outraging modesty will not be committed in public and will be perpetrated in the loneliness, and therefore it would not be justifiable to expect any independent witness of such incident,” magistrate GB Yadav said, while declaring Dongre guilty.

Dongre, in his written statement to the court, claimed that the woman was insisting on a raise. He claimed that because he had refused to increase her salary, she falsely implicated him. The court, however, noted that the woman joined Dongre’s organisation in August, only three months before she was molested.

“In such circumstances, there is less possibility that she will falsely implicate the accused by putting on stake her character and job,” the magistrate noted.

Dongre presented three witnesses in his defence. The court, however, found contradictions in their testimonies.